


The Lady Gardener

by jessthereckless



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Aziraphale in Lingerie (Good Omens), Aziraphale is a Tease (Good Omens), Crowley is Good With Kids (Good Omens), Crowley is a Mess (Good Omens), Crowley's Plants (Good Omens), F/F, Fat bottomed girls, Female Aziraphale (Good Omens), First Time, Gardener Aziraphale (Good Omens), Idiots in Love, Ineffable Wives (Good Omens), Men are terrible, Nanny Crowley (Good Omens), Porn with Feelings, Public Sex, Quote: Can I Hear a Wahoo? (Good Omens), Sex Toys, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), Temporary Character Death, Warlock's mom has got it going on, Weird Biology, anything's a dildo if you're brave enough, but they know how to deal with him, fucking while pining, it's very temporary I promise, quite extraordinary amounts of cunnilingus, some minor creepiness from Dowling, the thirst statue, tremendous lesbians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:22:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 80,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21519955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessthereckless/pseuds/jessthereckless
Summary: What if Crowley had known in advance about Aziraphale’s ‘Brother Francis’ disguise and talked him out of it?And what if Aziraphale had followed Crowley’s example and also gone undercover as a woman?It’s an Undercover At The Ambassador’s Residence AU! (The porn starts in chapter three.)
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 398
Kudos: 1047





	1. Miss Frances Fell

In a quiet corner of West Sussex lived the boy who would end the world.

He weighed around seventeen pounds and was exactly twenty-six inches long, which was almost exactly what he should have been at around six months old. He had blue eyes – like his putative father – and curly blond hair. The curly blond hair was unlike either of his ‘parents’, but that wasn’t too much of a problem, since Harriet Dowling said that she had been a blonde baby herself, darkening to brunette by the time she was ten or so. He had the smallest fingernails Crowley had ever seen and – if Crowley had been pushed to admit – quite lovely little toesie-woesies. His name was Warlock Thaddeus Chadwick Dowling, but that wasn’t his fault and there was no use in holding it against him, any more than it was his fault that one day he would command the armies of his father, Satan, and plunge the world into neverending darkness and hellfire.

“You can’t choose the hand you’re dealt,” Crowley said, rocking the baby’s pushchair with a kitten-heeled foot. “Some people just get the crap jobs, and there’s nothing you can do but make the best of it.”

She adjusted her tinted glasses and peered up at the sky, as if expecting something to descend from it. It had been a while, and she was starting to get concerned. She’d been doing the satanic nanny thing for four months now, but it was all going to be for nothing unless her opposite number checked in and started influencing the child in the ways of light and goodness. That had been the plan all along. Cancel each other out.

“Perhaps I could be a gardener,” Aziraphale had said. “Everyone needs gardeners, and I’ve seen the ambassador’s country residence down in West Sussex. Tudor mansion. Huge gardens. I could be a rustic local who knows all the ways of the soil.”

“Please don’t,” Crowley had said, one eye on a sickly spider plant on the bookshop window. It took a genuinely black thumb to make something as easy as a spider plant suffer, and by the looks of things the angel had two. “I know you. You’ll turn up like a lost Starkadder cousin, with a ridiculous accent and a straw between your teeth.”

“I would not.”

“You would. You’re the worst at judging how to dress for an occasion. You’ve been wearing the same coat since the nineteenth century. Admit it – your gardener disguise involves a _smock_, doesn’t it?”

“No,” Aziraphale had said, but it had, because Crowley knew him far too well. There would be a smock, and a straw hat, and a strange pastoral accent that was neither Sussex nor Somerset, but did skate suspiciously close to something that might have been heard during a village amateur dramatic society’s production of _The Pirates of Penzance_.

Warlock had been alive for six months now, six months since Crowley and Aziraphale – trollied on Chateauneuf du Pape – had shaken hands in the back of the bookshop and agreed that they needed to work together. Four months since Crowley had last seen the angel, who had been ruminating on possible disguises. Four months in which Aziraphale had doubtless put some serious thought into how he meant to go undercover in the ambassador’s household, which was a worry, because whenever Aziraphale put thought into any form of subterfuge the results were always far, far worse than if he’d put in no thought at all. The very worst case scenario involved him drawing on a curly black moustache with an eyebrow pencil and pulling a series of irritated rabbits out of hats.

Crowley had put up with a lot from the angel over the millenia, but her tolerance always threatened to snap whenever Harry the fucking Rabbit came out to play.

The baby whimpered in his sleep. His cheeks were red and fat, his lower lip wet with drool. He was teething and Harriet Dowling had had just about enough of her nipples being munched on, much to the chagrin of her husband, who kept quoting statistics about how breast was best, and how babies in the developing world didn’t have separation anxiety because they were breastfed until they were at least five years old. Crowley had been standing behind the dining room door when this conversation took place, and had heard every word, including the loud ones that followed, and the sound of a half full breast pump splattering against the late eighteenth century oak panelling.

“We’re weaning, Nanny,” Mrs Dowling had announced, stomping out of the dining room with damp patches on her blouse and a fine mist of breast milk decorating her hair.

Warlock’s whimper turned to a mewl. Somewhere in the reed beds a radio crackled in response. Crowley had taken the baby down to the Wetlands Trust for a peaceful stroll, but they had come here in an armoured black SUV, with Warlock strapped into his latest complicated car seat. With the Dowlings you were never far away from their security detail at any given time. Someone was always watching.

Crowley had never really given much thought about how it would feel to be part of an ambassador’s household, beyond vague thoughts that at some point someone was probably going to appear with a pyramid of moderately priced chocolates on a tray and they all would be obliged to tell the ambassador that with these moderately priced chocolates he was really spoiling them. That hadn’t happened. What _had_ happened was a startling amount of sex. It turned out that when you introduced a number of muscular and largely good looking security guys to a mostly female housekeeping staff, they all started shagging each other. A lot. At least every third night Crowley would go to fetch a bottle or a mislaid tub of baby powder and stumble across some sign of sexual indiscretion – a giggle, a shush, or the hem of a white nightie fluttering behind a closing door.

In some respects it was a lot like those reality shows that Crowley had been so proud of helping to create: everyone was watching, being watched, and sneaking off to bang one another. Nanny Ashtoreth strode through it all with a poker-spined veneer of obliviousness, although of course she couldn’t miss the frisson of sexual interest that occasionally hung like smoke in hallways behind her. There was something about Ashtoreth that appealed to a certain type of man, usually men who were expensively educated and raised at arm’s length from their mothers. The kind of men who were frequently promoted – due to family connections or simple upward failures – to ranks far beyond their intellectual ability or competence. This would inevitably cause them considerable stress, but they were too short on self-awareness to understand that they were out of their depths, and also because their old school boating song had assured them that society waited for _them_, not vice versa.

At first glance, Thaddeus Dowling was one such man. Likely millions had been sunk into his education over the years, but sometimes his lips still moved when he read. When he’d had a hard day he reached not for the nearest bottle of spirits, but the nursery comfort of a glass of cold, creamy milk and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Nanny Ashtoreth had caught him looking, his round blue eyes lingering over her leather gloves, seamed black stockings and pencil skirts, things that advertised a sexuality where all he could enjoy the luxury of eschewing all decisions and simply doing as he was told, because Nanny knew best.

He had always been interested in what was going on behind her glasses. “I bet you’ve got beautiful eyes,” he’d said, ignoring her protests that she had a medical condition – light sensitivity and migraines – that meant she would prefer to keep her glasses on. Then one day he put his hand on her bottom and got an eyeful. Two eyefuls, to be precise. Two large, yellow, slit-pupiled and so-not-human eyefuls. “Mr Ambassssador,” Nanny had hissed. “When I tell you that I’m not your type, _believe me_.”

He hadn’t tried it on again after that. Besides, as it turned out, he didn’t have a type at all. If Crowley had been asked to categorise his type she might have said ‘anything with a pulse and a head’, but then one day Mrs Dowling had crept into the nursery, wearing a fraught expression and clutching what had looked like a battery operated torch but wasn’t, on account of it not having batteries and having a fully formed latex vulva where it should have had a lightbulb. Heads and pulses were apparently optional. “Why is he like this?” said Harriet Dowling. “It was in the glovebox. I literally thought it was a flashlight. I was groping around in the dark trying to figure out why it wouldn’t work and the next thing I know I’m knuckle deep in a…in a rubber vagina. I _touched_ it. I don’t even know how you clean a thing like that, and now I can’t stop thinking about it.”

There had been tears, and rage, and Crowley had learned what a rubber vagina sounded like when it was flung very hard against eighteenth century oak panelling. “Of course his…his pocket pussy doesn’t have an episiotomy scar. My mom always said that men go off when you have a baby. Like, I’d accepted that, but she never told me that my body would feel like a bomb had gone off in it. Nothing is where it used to be, Nanny. Nothing. I’m just a mess of leaks and scar tissue and I know it was always going to be different after a baby, but it would be so much easier to get used to this new body if he’d just kiss me and hold me and tell me I’m beautiful. It’s not much to ask, is it?”

“It’s not, ma’am,” said Nanny. “And your body is more than beautiful. It’s miraculous. Your body has created a life.”

“Thank you, Nanny,” said Mrs Dowling, drying her eyes. “That means a lot right now. Thank you. Sometimes I feel as though you’re the only woman around here who can trust.”

“That’s very kind of you to say so,” Nanny had said, trying very hard not to think what might have happened to the _actual_ life that Mrs Dowling had pushed out at the convent of the Chattering Order of St Beryl. The baby had probably been discreetly adopted somewhere. Or just left on the doorstep of some kindly but childless couple. Not even a couple. Perhaps a pair of old bachelors who lived together for the sake of old acquaintance and convenience, and who – while trying and failing to find the child’s birth parents, and through a series of heartwarming moments with the baby – came to realise that they were not only ready to be parents themselves, but were also shatteringly in love with one another, and they all lived happily ever after.

Probably. Not that Crowley had put much thought into it.

The baby was getting restless, so Crowley made her way back through the tall reeds to the SUV. She didn’t get to drive these days, and pined for her Bentley, safely stored in London. That had been the hardest thing of all to give up – the Bentley. She had never been that attached to the notion of being one gender or another, so she didn’t miss the penis, or the nuisance of stuffing it into skinny jeans. Neither did she miss the ability to walk safely in dark places, because Crowley was almost always the worst thing in any given dark place.

But the Bentley. That one had caused a pang. That and the kitten heels. Crowley loathed kitten heels. She felt they made her already large feet look even larger, but the lecherous Dowling meant this was no place to be wearing anything as un-Nannyish as four inch heels. That and the fact that in really high heels Crowley was over six and a half feet tall, and the house had a lot of those low Tudor doorways that put her in mind of that one French king, the one who had fatally beaned himself on a door lintel after a game of tennis.

They drove back to the mansion. As Crowley moved to extract Warlock from his various straps and fastenings she saw that theirs was not the vehicle on the gravel drive. In front of them was a taxi.

Crowley’s first glimpse of the taxi’s passenger came from the rear. It was a generous rear, and its modest covering of pale tweed did little to disguise that in the right light – a red firelight, for example – it would have most definitely made the rockin’ world go round. Beneath the hem of the skirt were a pair of fleshy calves, tapering into a pair of ankles whose surprising delicacy caused Crowley a sharp jolt of recognition. She’d clocked those dainty ankles before, in stockings both silk and knit, bare beneath the hem of a gold-embroidered robe, or glimpsed – Argyle socked and probably gartered – between the cuffs of tweed trousers and a pair of brown Oxfords.

The brogues were still there, but they were lighter, their heels higher. They crunched down onto the gravel and Crowley watched in astonishment as a voluptuous figure extracted itself from the taxi.

The angel had clearly decided not to go with ‘comedy yokel’ for her gardener’s disguise, but it was cold comfort to Crowley, who could already see the kind of havoc Aziraphale was going to cause around the place. Aziraphale’s few extra pounds had translated themselves to a set of overripe curves that were testing the side seams of her dreary tweed skirt to the max. Her tidy cropped curls were now chin length, and a passing breeze tousled them into a platinum blonde Marilyn mop. When she turned her head to brush her cowlick out of her eyes, Crowley caught sight of the new profile – the same arched eyebrows and tip-tilted nose as before – but transfigured by the angel’s feminine disguise.

“Hey, lady – you can’t park here,” said one of the security detail, and Aziraphale turned, almost knocking the man over with the sheer force of teeth and tits. Aziraphale’s smile was beguiling enough in his regular corporation, but in this one it was irresistable. And then there were the boobs. Sweet Satan, the _boobs_. Two perfect creamy pink mounds jostling in the V of a lace trimmed blouse.

“Oh, I’m dreadfully sorry,” she said. “I know there’s probably a tradesmen’s entrance somewhere, but I can’t seem to find it. I’m the new gardener, you see.”

Tradesman’s entrance? Did he – beg pardon, _she_ – even hear herself sometimes? Apparently changing sex had done nothing to blunt Aziraphale’s talent for accidental innuendo. If anything, it had made it worse, because now everyone would want to fuck her, and not just Crowley. Those breasts were ridiculous.

“Let me take care of this,” Crowley said, stepping forward, the baby on her hip. “You’ll be wanting the _servant’s_ entrance, miss,” she said, in Nanny’s cultivated Scottish purr. As soon as the secret service guy turned away she switched back into her usual accent. “A lady gardener?” she said, in a piercing whisper. “Really?”

“You told me to be modern about it,” said Aziraphale. “Women can be gardeners now.” She smiled uncertainly at the baby. “Is that…is that _him?_”

“Yes. And before you ask, he doesn’t have hooves,” said Crowley, quickly returning to the more immediate problem. She nodded down at the angel’s remarkable new corporation. “And never mind that. What were you _thinking_?”

She didn’t get any further, because Ambassador Dowling came striding across the gravel, beaming all over his face. “Well, hello,” he said, making a beeline for Aziraphale. “Can I help you?”

“Oh, yes. Hello,” said Aziraphale, holding out a hand in greeting. “I’m Frances Fell, the new gardener.”

Shit. Dowling was plainly charmed. His eyes immediately settled on Aziraphale’s cleavage, far too prominently displayed and garnished with a white gardenia pinned to her tweed lapel. “Delighted,” he said, and pretended to be interested in the boutonniere. “Is that a…?”

“…flower?” Aziraphale floundered. “Yes. Yes, it is.”

“Gardenia,” said Crowley, through clenched teeth. “That’s a _gardenia_.”

Mercifully, Harriet Dowling – a woman all too accustomed to catching her husband staring down other women’s blouses – popped out of the front door like a decorative figure from a cuckoo clock. “Thad?”

“Oh, hi sweetheart. Look. The new gardener is here!”

Incredulity and politeness fought briefly on Mrs Dowling’s face. Very briefly, because Incredulity almost immediately incapacitated Politeness with a sharp, gasping uppercut to the throat. She caught Crowley’s eyes, and Incredulity gained several new friends in a hurry – Despair, Desperation and HELP!

“Perhaps if you took the baby, ma’am,” Crowley said, handing over Warlock. “I could show Miss Fell to the gardener’s residence?”

“Thank you, Nanny.”

“Oh, it’s nothing.” She pinched the baby’s dimpled cheek. “Besides, the poor little lamb has been missing Mummy and Daddy, haven’t you, my cupcake.” She gave Mrs Dowling one of those thin, knowing smiles that had to suffice in the absence of a wink. “_Especially_ Daddy.”

“That would be nice,” said Mrs Dowling, catching on. She immediately brightened and handed the now loudly whining baby to her husband. “It’s been so long since you had some quality time with Warlock, darling.”

The two woman-shaped supernatural entities made their escape. “Are you out of your celestial mind?” said Crowley, when they were at a safe distance.

“What?” said Aziraphale. “You were the one who said I should avoid smocks.”

“Smocks are beside the point. You’re supposed to be a gardener and you literally don’t know a gardenia from your own left tit. Which, by the way…can we please talk about the breasts?”

“Is there something the matter with them?”

“They’re _huge!_”

Aziraphale self-consciously smoothed down the front of her overstuffed blouse. “Well, you know me,” she said. “I’ve always been fuller figured, and as a matter of fact I think it’s rather insensitive of you to point that out…”

“…no, it wasn’t a dig about your weight.”

“It certainly sounded that way to me,” said Aziraphale. “We can’t all exist on whiskey and caffeine, you know.”

Oh, this was _weird_. While Aziraphale had evinced an almost fatal weakness for frilly things back in the late eighteenth century (revolutionary France, to be precise) he had – in general – always been a much more masculine entity than Crowley, who was happy to slither between the sexes whenever it suited. Crowley had a lot of theories about this, plenty of them uncharitable. After all, for much of human history a woman’s place had been in the wrong, and perhaps Aziraphale had picked up that perception? “Nonsense,” Aziraphale had said, one night when Crowley had been pissed enough to voice this thought. “If you’re trying to point out that I’m sexist then I’m afraid you’re being absurd. I’m an angel. By definition I am sex_less_, so I don’t see how I can be sex_ist_.” Actually he’d said ‘sexisht’, because the Mouton Rothschild had been flowing pretty freely at that hour of the night, and he’d topped up his glass, fluffed up his invisible feathers and said “Anyway, changing my corporation to that degree is always such a _faff_.”

Faff or not, it was clear that they were going to have to make some adjustments to the angel’s disguse, because this was going to cause chaos. The Dowling household was already a hotbed of illicit banging, and the last thing it needed was a busty gardener jiggling over the rose beds. Aziraphale wouldn’t last five minutes if Ambassador Dowling kept on looking at her like that: Mrs Dowling simply wouldn’t stand for it. She was in the habit of throwing things when they displeased her, and you couldn’t very well fling an angel against the wall in the manner of a breast pump or a disembodied latex vagina.

The gardener’s cottage was a tiny mock Tudor building that lay in a hollow just below the main house. From there, separated by a row of spreading lindens and sweet chestnuts, the green lawn stretched upwards to the mansion. Through the winter denuded trees one could just make out the end gable where Crowley slept, or more accurately lay awake most nights, listening to the Velvet Underground with one ear, and with the other attuned to the midnight gurglings of the tiny antichrist in the next room.

The cottage door opened directly on a kitchen, the sink right next to the door. In the middle of the kitchen was a large, old wooden table, and beyond that an archway that led into a cosy, book-lined living area that made Aziraphale gasp with delight when she saw it. “Oh, how _lovely_,” she said, almost skipping to the nearest bookshelf. Already Crowley could see how the angel would enfold herself in this new living space, how her presence would fill the place with the accompanying Aziraphale-clutter – silver snuffboxes, expensive fountain pens and crackly old forty-fives of Maria Callas singing _Tosca_.

“Look at all those books about plants,” said Crowley, slinking up behind her. “You can read those, you know. Instead of sitting around eating chocolates and mooning over Baudelaire, or whatever it was you were up to in London. You know – when you _weren’t_ learning what a gardenia looks like.”

“Shopping,” said Aziraphale. “I was mostly shopping. You can’t expect me to get up to speed on gardening and ladies’ fashion, you know. The underwear alone is remarkably complicated.” She turned and performed some distractingly bouncy adjustments to the frontage. “I’m still not completely sure I’ve got the brassiere right. Is there any tea, do you think?”

“No idea.”

Aziraphale headed back to the kitchen and started throwing open various cupboards. She tutted when she saw that the teapot was on the highest shelf, and was just about to levitate the thing when Crowley stopped her. “Uh uh. No miracles.”

“Levitation is not a miracle.”

“It is,” said Crowley. “Unless the laws of physics have suddenly changed enough to allow teapots to float down from shelves.”

Aziraphale pouted. “You’re a fine one to talk about bending the laws of physics. You and that car.”

Crowley winced. The Bentley was still a sore point. “I mean it,” she said. “We’re supposed to be deep undercover here. You said it yourself – this is an ambitious and dangerous project. This is The Arrangement on steroids. We are essentially attempting to thwart Armageddon, and I don’t know about your lot, but my lot have been itching for a punch up ever since the day Satan took a nose dive off a cloud. They are liable to be homicidally disappointed if said punch up doesn’t happen, and I would prefer that they never, _ever_ find out that I was the one responsible for their disappointment, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Good. So you agree? No miracles.”

“No,” said Aziraphale, still looking pouty, not to mention annoyingly pretty.

“No more turning supermarket wine to a Premier Cru, no tapdancing across the trout pond, and _definitely_ no raising the dead.”

“All right. If you’re quite finished nagging…” Aziraphale pulled up a chair. “Hold this steady for me.”

Crowley held the chair as Aziraphale climbed up to retrieve the teapot. She realised too late that she was about to get an eyeful. The tweed skirt went up like a theatre curtain, revealing creamy lace stocking tops and a rounded pink bum barely covered by a wisp of shockingly sexy underwear. Crowley hadn’t been sure what she’d expecting, but she hadn’t been expecting _that_. Clearly Aziraphale had learned bugger all about horticulture over the last few months, but she’d learned plenty about women’s undergarments. Aziraphale was wearing French knickers – beige satin, trimmed with frothy white lace. “I don’t know what they were thinking,” she was saying. “Putting the teapot all the way up here…”

But Crowley wasn’t listening. As Aziraphale climbed down from the chair, Crowley was reeling from the revelation that there was something that was going to drive her even more insane than her nightmare scenario of Aziraphale playing the gardener as a comedy country bumpkin. This. This was much, much worse. She was no stranger to yearning when it came to Aziraphale, but this was going to be tough. It had been several centuries since the last time Crowley had been a practising lesbian, but apparently all it took was one flash of celestial French knicker and she was already wondering what an angel’s pussy tasted like.

“I was beginning to think you wouldn’t show up at all,” said Crowley, retreating to a safe distance across the kitchen. “You remember the plan?”

“Of course I remember the plan,” said Aziraphale, putting away the chair and smoothing her skirt down over her hips.

“I influence him toward the darkness, you influence him toward the light—”

“—and we cancel one another out. Same as always. I _know_, Crowley.”

“Don’t call me Crowley,” said Crowley. “My name is Nanny Ashtoreth.”

Aziraphale raised an arched eyebrow. “Ashtoreth? Subtle. Why don’t you throw in an Asmodeus for good measure?”

“Laugh it up, Fanny Fell. I’m not the one who sounds like a pelvic floor malfunction. Anyway, you were supposed to be here four months ago. I’ve been doing my bit, but you haven’t been doing yours. He’s going to be four months more evil than he’s supposed be, and that might not seem like a lot to you, but it might be the difference between Armageddon and not-Armageddon.”

“So I’ll put in some overtime,” said Aziraphale. “Besides, how much influence is the child absorbing anyway? He’s a baby. He’s probably not much more sensible to anything beyond the basic sensations of hunger, tiredness and needing a nappy change. I very much doubt he’s in a position to grasp the finer points of theology as laid down by Saint Thomas Aquinas, is he?”

“Not yet,” said Crowley. “But steer clear of Aquinas when he is, yeah? I don’t think the whole Just War is a concept we want to introduce to a kid who was essentially born to kick off the final battle between Heaven and Hell.”

Aziraphale nodded. “Perhaps you’re right.” She eyed Crowley suspiciously. “What have you been reading to him?”

“I have been reading him _The Very Hungry Caterpillar_,” said Crowley.

“Not sure I’m familiar with that one.”

“I suppose you could call it a ringing endorsement of the merits of Gluttony,” said Crowley. “But mostly it’s about a caterpillar who eats things and eventually turns into a butterfly. Oh, and there are holes to wiggle your fingers through. He likes the holes. Can’t get enough of the wiggly finger holes.”

“Aw.”

“Yeah. It’s quite sweet, actually. And don’t worry too much about that four month head start. I wasn’t wiling very hard anyway, although I will be wiling harder from now on. Now that you’re here.”

“Wile away,” said Aziraphale. “I’m ready for you. You wile, I thwart.”

“Right then.”

“Right.”

Crowley looked Aziraphale up and down, and felt as though she should say something. “You look…nice, by the way. Buxom. Winsome, even. I hope you’ve got some more practical clothes for gardening, though.”

“Oh, absolutely. I’ve got all kinds of gardening gear in the trunk. This is just a travelling ensemble.”

Travelling ensemble? God, she probably had a walking dress and a fucking riding habit in that trunk. The nineteenth century had done a real number on Aziraphale’s fashion sense. “Well, it’s lovely,” said Crowley.

“Oh. Thank you.” Aziraphale blushed prettily. “You look lovely, too.”

“Shut up.”

“No, you do. I could never pull off a pencil skirt like that.” Aziraphale sighed. “Just don’t have the hips for it, I’m afraid.”

* * *

For the first few months Crowley and Aziraphale existed in the kind of stalemate they’d worked so hard to perfect over the previous six millenia. They kept largely out of one another’s way and met beside duck ponds. Perched like bookends on a park bench, they would sit and pretend that their conversation wasn’t one of grave importance, while Aziraphale tossed bread to the ducks and Crowley gently rocked the baby back and forth in his pushchair.

This didn’t last long, because Warlock outgrew the pushchair with startling speed. He took his first steps at the advanced age of eight months, or so his parents claimed. What actually happened was that at eight months he was just about stable enough for someone to hold him up by the armpits while he made walking movements. Dowling pronounced his son and heir a prodigy and immediately went out and bought him a set of junior golf clubs in anticipation of the happy day when he would one day join his father on the greens. Harriet Dowling gave him the sideeye for a week.

Thankfully Crowley’s anxieties about the ambassador and the angel came to nothing, because Dowling was currently absorbed in his son. He hadn’t found the child especially interesting for the first few months, when Warlock did little but cry, sleep, eat and shit, but the baby had reached that beguiling age where he was starting to look around, gurgle and coo. Every day brought new noises and new capabilities. He held his head up for longer. His wavering dark blue gaze fixed more clearly on the faces that smiled down at him. Even a lump like his father found him charming, and the Dowlings got over their post-natal teething troubles and formed a mutual admiration society for their adorable new son.

Crowley – already accustomed to the shifting sands of the Dowlings’ marriage – suspected that this bliss wouldn’t last forever, but in the meantime she wasn’t knocking it. She had her hands full not only with the baby but with Aziraphale, who was a terrible gardener.

This wasn’t the handicap it might have been, since Aziraphale’s picture of what a gardener actually did had little to do with the reality of running an estate, and everything to do with sickly nineteenth century children’s books, where the gardener was a source of rustic, working class wisdom for posh kid protagonists who had been alienated by their rich and indifferent parents. In reality, Aziraphale found herself in the more administrative role of an estate manager, doing the books and payroll for a team of gardeners who were a lot better with plants than she was. Whenever she was called upon to do any actual gardening, Crowley followed her around and – behind her back – gave the plants a stern talking to.

“Look,” she’d say, glowering at a hopelessly overwatered geranium or petunia. “I know she’s bloody awful at this, but _I’m_ not, so get over it. Or you’ll have me to deal with.”

If it knew what was good for it, the plant would then shiver and release the excess water from the bottom of the pot. On the offchance that it didn’t wet itself when Crowley glared, Crowley would pay a return visit and do the old empty pot trick that had always worked so well on her own houseplants.

“I don’t know how you do it,” Aziraphale said. “You seem to have a magic touch with them.” She gave Crowley a needling look. “It’s not magic, is it? Because you know what we said…”

“No, it’s not magic,” said Crowley. “It’s science, I think. I talk to them, that’s all.”

“What about music?” said Aziraphale. “Do you play them music? I’m sure I read somewhere that they enjoy music.”

“Yeah, sometimes.” Crowley’s plants didn’t enjoy music as such, but they had been subjected to it on occasion, like the time when a greenfly outbreak had caused Crowley to get really theatrical and crank out the relevant parts of _Carmina Burana_ as a backdrop to her own infernal screaming. Two hours later every greenfly lay belly up on the windowsills, having been evicted by their terrified hosts.

Aziraphale’s taste in music was a lot less satanic. She was currently somewhere in the rose garden, her presence announced by the snatches of opera she was humming to the plants. Like most angels, Aziraphale sang, but in true Aziraphale fashion she didn’t quite get it right. In her regular corporation she was a powerful light baritone. Too powerful, in fact, and she’d been shunted discreetly out of the Heavenly Choir for sounding a bit too Gilbert and Sullivan. Obviously those hadn’t been the exact words used, because this was several thousand years before Gilbert and Sullivan existed, but as soon as they had existed Crowley would have put money on someone up in Heaven seeing the premiere of _HMS Pinafore_ or whatever and being all, “Oh, _that’s_ how Aziraphale sings.”

In her new corporation, Aziraphale was an alto, and apparently enjoying it. Fragments of _Voi Che Sapete_ floated out from the rose garden. Crowley, in a black one piece bathing suit and a big black straw hat, basked by the pool. The Dowlings had flown to Martha’s Vineyard to spend Warlock’s first birthday with his grandparents, and Crowley had two weeks off. The gardens were in the full bloom of June and Crowley soaked up the sun like a happy reptile.

One of the young gardeners was working on the opposite side of the pool, weeding one of the tiered rockeries that led down to the Jacobean garden. Crowley could make out his shoulders – bare, broad and tan – and the top of his head. She had caught him looking a couple of times, but didn’t respond. She lay inscrutable behind her sunglasses, ankles crossed and her heels still on. The shoes were new, a pair of snakeskin sandals whose many straps were elaborate enough to detract attention from her scaly toes. The secret service detail had gone to America with the family, so there was a lot less banging going on behind closed doors. All the same, an inevitable hot-weather antsiness had settled over the skeleton staff of the household. It was summer, after all. Bare limbs, naked nights and brief bikinis. Crowley glimpsed the gardener looking her way again, and uncrossed her legs. She drew her feet further up the sun lounger and affected a yawn as her long legs parted. Oh yes. He was looking now, his eyes drawn like magnets to the pale insides of her thighs, and the tight, skimpy wisp of black lycra that hugged the space between them. Maybe, just maybe, when there was no one around, she’d indulge his curiosity. And maybe – although this was a long shot, she knew – getting roundly fucked by a sexy young gardener might distract her from lying awake on hot summer nights, wondering what that frilly-knickered angel wore in bed, if anything.

“…_but I knew love before I left my nurser-eee_…”

Aziraphale had exhausted her repertoire of Mozart and changed her tune. Crowley stirred.

“…_left alone with big fat Fanny, she was such a naughty nanny_…”

“Seriously?” Crowley murmured. The last thing Nanny needed right now was a reminder of just how much she wanted to be naughty, especially where fat bottomed girls were concerned. Aziraphale wandered into view, a basket on her arm and her bobbed blonde curls covered with a straw hat sporting a pale blue ribbon. She wore a well-filled peasant blouse and from the waist up looked like she was about to sit for a painting for Mme. Vigée Le Brun, notwithstanding the fact that she was currently singing a song about large female arses. From the waist down the look was more contemporary, with high waisted khaki shorts that should have been absurdly old fashioned, but – probably more by accident than design – were being touted as the must-have look for this summer.

“…_oh, won’t you take me home tonight, oh, down beside your red firelight_…”

An angel. In Birkenstocks. Singing _Fat Bottomed Girls_. How was it possible for one being to be this many kinds of ridiculous all at once? And when – seriously, when? – was Crowley ever going to stop being into it?

Crowley peered over her glasses. Aziraphale was pruning roses. Or trying to. Feeling sorry for the roses, Crowley gathered up her black sarong and headed over to the rose garden. “What the hell are you doing?” she said.

Aziraphale peeked up from under the brim of her hat. Her face was slightly sunburned and starting to freckle, like the skin of a ripe pear. “My job,” she said. “What does it look like? We can’t all have two weeks off, you know.”

“That’s not what I meant at all,” said Crowley, reaching for the secateurs. They were as blunt as butter knives, and where Aziraphale had tried to cut with them the rose stems looked as though they’d been gnawed. “Your pruning shears need to be _sharp_, angel. And you don’t cut that far up. You need to be nearer the knuckle.”

“Near the knuckle? I would have thought that was more like your kind of thing.”

“It is. How are you still so rubbish with plants?”

“Well, I’ve finished, anyway,” said Aziraphale, snatching back the shears. “And I have to take these roses back to the cottage. Are you going back to the pool, or would you care to join me for a spot of inappropriate drinking?”

“How is that even a question? Have you even met me?”

They made their way back through the rose garden, Crowley’s high heels sinking into the grass, and Aziraphale too indifferent to her role to point out that Crowley’s sandals were wrecking the lawn. She padded along in her Birkenstocks, the new angle of her hips lending a bouncy sway to her usual abstracted gait. She didn’t know the first damn thing about gardening, and she’d probably never learn, but she’d look lovely while doing so.

It was cool in the cottage. Aziraphale dumped the roses stem down into the washing up bowl and plucked at the waistband of her shorts. “These things are so tight,” she said. “Would you mind squeezing a couple of lemons while I slip into something more comfortable?”

There were lemons in a bowl on the table. They had come from the long, lean-to greenhouse that a Victorian owner of the house had built against the outer wall of the Jacobean knot garden. Crowley liked to slip in there every now again, sometimes to chat to Aziraphale, other times just to breathe in the smell of hot foliage and ripening fruit that reminded her of Eden. Figs grew there, along with kumquats and the sweet yellow cherry tomatoes now piled up beside the sink. A bunch of carrots lay on the draining board, their feathery green tops streaming down like hair. Aziraphale may not have been much of a gardener, but Crowley had to give her credit for – occasionally – looking like she knew what the hell she was doing.

“Oh, that’s better,” said Aziraphale, emerging from the other room. She had swapped the shorts for a long, filmy peasant skirt in shades of pale blue and beige. Her feet were bare, and the skirt clung to her legs as she walked, waking Crowley’s thirst for more than just booze. What was under there? More fancy lace underwear? Or perhaps nothing at all.

“What are we doing with these lemons?” said Crowley.

“Tom Collins?”

“Lovely.”

Crowley squeezed the lemons while Aziraphale – with surprising ferocity – smashed up ice with the back of a meat hammer. Crowley couldn’t remember if a sugar frosted glass was standard for a Tom Collins, but she was happy enough to indulge the angel’s sweet tooth. The first shakerful slipped down way too easily, and they took their refills out onto the tiny patio where the geraniums bloomed in spite of Aziraphale’s persistent attempts to kill them with kindness. Aziraphale sprawled out in a deckchair with her feet resting on an upturned trough planter, so that the slight summer breeze caught the edge of her gauzy skirt and made it flutter, fine threads of gold embroidery catching in the linden-dappled sunlight. She lay back, gin-flushed and tousled, her eyes closed and her tip-tilted profile raised to receive the sun’s light like a blessing. Crowley watched and wondered – as she had a thousand or more times before – what would happen if she reached out, took hold of Aziraphale’s hand and told her that she loved her, that she’d always loved her, and that she found her almost unspeakably beautiful and marvellous.

Everything, probably. Everything and nothing. That’s what would happen. And it would hurt.

“I have to say,” said Aziraphale, without opening her eyes. “This is my kind of undercover mission.”

“I know. It’s very nice,” said Crowley, which was something of an understatement, because it was bloody gorgeous. This was why they were doing this in the first place – the wind in the treetops, the June sunlight hot on her skin. The drops of condensation on the copper skin of the cocktail shaker, the taste of lemon and juniper in her mouth, and the company of an old, dear friend. This was a world worth saving, and oh dear…gin always made her sentimental. “It won’t always be like this, you know,” she said.

“I know.”

One day soon they would be back on opposite sides. There would be no more of this. Just them. Working together. “They’ll come back from holiday,” said Crowley. “And the boy will keep on growing. Can’t be drinking gin before six o’clock when I’m charge of a toddler. And he’s very nearly a toddler.”

“They grow fast.”

“So fast.”

“Soon he’ll be old enough to absorb impressions. Influences.”

“Yep.” Crowley kicked off her heels and propped her feet alongside Aziraphale’s perfect pink angel feet. They looked very demonic by comparison. “‘Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man.’ Wasn’t that your man Aquinas?”

Aziraphale shook her head. “No. Loyola, I think.”

They sat in silence for a moment. Crowley moved her foot closer and their toes touched. She pushed and Aziraphale pushed back, and Aziraphale was drunk enough to giggle, pillowy bosom trembling under her muslin blouse. “You’re drunk,” she said.

“I’ve got two weeks off. What’s your excuse?”

“Latent alcoholism?”

“Did you say latent or blatant, because I can tell you right now which one is more accurate.”

But it was too late. The brief, sacred moment of silliness had passed, and Aziraphale didn’t laugh. “We haven’t got much time, Crowley,” she said. “They grow up so fast, and if this doesn’t work…”

“…but it will. Because we can _do_ this.”

Aziraphale sighed and squinted up at the sunlight and the leaves. “Perhaps,” she said. “I don’t really want to save the world, you know. I mean, I’ll do it if I absolutely have to, but I’m sure the world would be better off being saved by someone who was a lot more competent than me. Someone less prone to getting pissed in the afternoons.”

“Well, don’t look at me,” said Crowley. “I’m just as pissed as you are.”

This time Aziraphale managed a weak laugh. The breeze caught her hem again and the wind must have strengthened since they sat down, because this time her skirt billowed up like a sail over her lap, baring her oval pink knees and broad thighs. “Oopsy,” she said, and pushed it back down, tucking the fabric between her thighs to hold it down. She was delectable and she had no idea, and it was making Crowley nervous.

“Listen,” said Crowley. “I have to tell you something.”

“What?”

“Be _careful_, okay?”

Aziraphale frowned. “Careful? Of what? What on earth are you talking about?”

There was no easy way to say this, so Crowley decided to come straight out with it. “You’re very attractive, Aziraphale,” she said, and the angel immediately blushed. “You’ve got…that nose. And the cupid’s bow mouth. Perfect teeth…”

“…oh, really…”

“…no, I’m not trying to blow smoke up your arse. I’m just _saying_. Even as a man you’re quite…pretty, but as a woman you’re even prettier. And you’re _nice_. You’re not the type to punch a man in the throat if he tries to stick his hand up your skirt. All I’m saying is…be careful.”

“Crowley, I can handle myself,” said Aziraphale. “You don’t need to worry. I admit I don’t have as much experience navigating the hazards of a female corporation as you do, but I’m not some fluffy little duckling that you need to protect.”

“I know,” said Crowley. “I do. It’s just…” She sighed. “Look, all I’m saying is you haven’t seen the worst of it yet. Dowling’s preoccupied for now, because the baby’s gone past the boring puking potato stage and is now in the interesting, cute gurgly stage. But you weren’t here when the kid was less interesting. He was bored. And horny. One time he tried to stick his hand up _my_ skirt.”

Aziraphale’s blue eyes went wide. “Oh, my dear. I hope you punched him in the throat?”

Crowley shook her head. “Nah. I just gave him The Look.” She lowered her glasses and demonstrated. The Look was very yellow, and didn’t have much in the way of pupil, other than a thin black slit like an exclamation point, which was – coincidentally – the exact verbal response it triggered in the brains of anyone who saw it.

Except for Aziraphale, of course. She was used to it by now.

“My point, angel,” said Crowley. “Is that you don’t have that particular defence mechanism at your disposal.”

Aziraphale pursed her lips. “I am perfectly capable of punching someone in the throat, thank you.”

“Yeah, okay. I’m just saying. Keep an eye on Dowling. The only reason that man isn’t working his way through the housekeeping staff is because the housemaids are way ahead of him and already treating his secret service detail like an all you can eat sexual buffet.”

Aziraphale sputter-laughed through a mouthful of gin and soda. “Crowley!”

“What? It’s true. All those buff young men in sharp suits and sunglasses? Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it.”

“I have not,” said Aziraphale, turning pious and fluffy. “Nor will I ever.”

“Oh, you will. You’ll have to think about it, sooner or later. You’ll stumble across it at some point, because I did.”

“Stumble across it? What do you mean?”

“The usual,” said Crowley. “Giggling, squeaking bed springs, slamming doors. Knickers left on the stairs one time.”

“_Knickers?_”

“Knickers and condom wrappers. Trust me, this place is a hotbed of illicit hook-ups.”

“I suppose that’s your influence?” said Aziraphale, trying to look censorious, no easy feat when you were that deep in a bottle of Bombay Sapphire.

“Me? No. I didn’t do a damn thing.”

“Really? When you’re strutting around the place looking like a dominatrix?”

“Excuse me?” said Crowley. “When did you ever see a dominatrix in a kitten heel?” She sighed. “God, I miss my Jimmy Choos.”

“Then why aren’t you wearing them?”

“Because they’re four inch fuck-me heels and I really _would_ look like a dominatrix,” she said. “And the last thing I want to do is get Father Dowling’s blood pumping again. It’s going to piss on our plan if one of us gets fired because Harriet thinks we’re a threat to her marriage.”

“If you get fired then I go, too,” said Aziraphale. “Equal and opposite and all that. We do this together or not at all.”

“Agreed,” said Crowley, more pleased by this than she wanted to let on. “But let’s try to avoid that scenario altogether, shall we? We can’t leave the boy alone to be influenced by just anybody. He might turn out to be really monstrous.”

“He’s the Antichrist, Crowley. Monstrous is a given.”

“He’s not monstrous at all. He’s…he’s a baby.” Aziraphale looked sceptical, and Crowley was drunk enough to keep going. “I’ve bathed him. I’ve seen every little inch of him. He’s a perfectly normal baby. No weird birthmarks, no horns. Ten fingers, ten tiny toes. Itty bitty fingernails. Fat little knees.”

Aziraphale raised an eyebrow. “You sound as though you like him.”

“He’s a _baby_. He’s cute. I can’t help it if I do. Babies _make_ you like them. That’s how they survive. They’d never make it in the wild if they weren’t so bloody adorable. It’s just…science. Or something.”

“Fine. Just don’t get too attached, Crowley.”

“I’m not,” said Crowley, wondering if Warlock had talked yet. When the Dowlings had left he had still been at the burbling stage, but more and more of his burbles had been starting to sound word-like. She caught herself hoping that she hadn’t missed the baby’s first words, and resolved to cut back on the gin. It always made her sentimental.

The Dowlings returned on the following Saturday. Harriet Dowling wore a new Lily Pulitzer and a scowl. “A tree surgeon,” she said, by way of explanation, when she and Crowley were alone. “He fucked a _tree surgeon_. Named Rowan. I’m serious. That was her name. _A tree surgeon whose name is a goddamn tree_.”

“What a strange coincidence,” said Crowley, in Nanny’s Morningside tones. The baby was heavier on her hip now, and he kept trying to snatch her glasses. “Warlock, dear, don’t do that. Nanny doesn’t care for it.”

“Nana!” said Warlock.

Crowley blinked very rapidly, and took several deep, steadying breaths.

“Oh, he does that, now,” said Harriet, partly charmed out of her rage. “The whole time we were away it was Nana, Nana, Nana. He missed you.”

“Oh, my darling,” Crowley cooed. “Nanny missed you too.”

The Antichrist dimpled sweetly and bared his tiny white baby teeth in a winning smile. It figured. His father had been quite charismatic, back in the day.

Crowley joined Mrs Dowling at the nursery window. The sound of her molars grinding could be heard from the other side of the room, and it wasn’t hard to see why. Thaddeus Dowling was prowling at the top of the lawn. Further down the lawn, Aziraphale – her luscious round arse in the air – was weeding a border.

“Great,” said Harriet. “Another one who puts the whore in horticulture.” And with that she stalked off, leaving Crowley with the baby.

Crowley exhaled, watching the oblivious angel wiggle provocatively above the summer heathers. “Well, _bugger_,” she said.

“Bu-ga,” echoed Warlock, with apparent relish.

“Shit,” said Crowley. She was going to have to start watching her language. Among other things.


	2. Ladygardening For Beginners

Aziraphale was still trying to get to grips with her new body.

The most significant difference was the breasts. They were, as Crowley pointed out, quite large, and the feel of them was unexpected. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected – a firm, fleshy solidity perhaps – but instead they were surprisingly squishy, like water balloons. When she laid down they didn’t stick straight up, nipples pointing directly at the ceiling, but rather they fell further apart under their own weight, as if trying to take up residence in her armpits. Part of her was already toying with the idea of asking Crowley if this was normal, and another part of her was insisting that Crowley – who didn’t have much in the way of a bust – had never experienced anything of the sort and would probably look at her like she was an idiot.

She thought she may as well face it: Crowley was just better at this than she was.

“You _have_ to come swimming,” Crowley had said, when they were drunk on the patio. “That pool is fantastic. May as well enjoy the perks of this place while we’re here.”

“Oh, absolutely,” Aziraphale had said, but uncertainty crept in even as she said it, because Crowley’s diaphanous black and red sarong had slithered off, and was nothing more than a wisp around one long thigh. Her high cut black bathing suit left very little to the imagination.

“You’ve got outfits for just about every other activity,” Crowley had said. “Don’t tell me you didn’t pack a bathing suit? No, wait – you did, didn’t you? And it probably involves _bloomers_.”

“It doesn’t, and I didn’t, actually.”

“Oh. Oh well. We’ll just have to go skinny dipping then.”

This was Aziraphale’s cue to act scandalised and Crowley’s to laugh, but it wasn’t as though they hadn’t done it before. Roman plumbing was all pervasive at one point and they’d bumped into one another in the baths on more than one occasion. And in the Middle Ages, too, when public baths were a lot more common than the popular perception of the period would have one believe. As Aziraphale remembered it, things had only got seriously stinky when people started getting syphilis and turning up at the communal baths with running sores, which had repulsed other bathers and driven them from the waters. And then pomanders had taken off in a big way.

Crowley, not to be discouraged, had dropped off a gift at the cottage. It was a bikini. Not an itsy bitsy, teenie-weeny, yellow polka dot bikini, although it did have polka dots. It was pale blue with cream dots, and an underwired bra with a sweetheart neckline, and Aziraphale was trying very hard not to like it as much as she did. It was pretty, and Aziraphale had already realised she had a tremendous weakness for pretty things. Once she’d got up the nerve to present herself at Rigby and Peller for a bra fitting, she’d been on a roll, as the saying went. “Thirty six E,” the saleswoman had said. “My, you _are_ blessed, aren’t you? But don’t worry. They make lovely things in all sizes these days. It’s not like the bad old days, when everything above a double D looked like a parachute harness.”

And there _were_ lovely things. There were brassieres so filmy that the blush of her nipples showed through the delicate lace, and sheer, lace topped stockings. She’d gone on a bit of a shopping spree, if truth be told, buying far more frilly underpinnings than strictly necessary for a gardener, but it was impossible to resist. Her favourite thing of all was a pale coffee-cream lace basque, with dangling, ribbon trimmed suspenders, and a balcony style bra that made her newly acquired breasts simply mesmerising. Of course, it wasn’t remotely suitable attire for an angel, and she had nobody to wear it _for_, but when she’d voiced the latter sentiment the saleslady had been very adamant that sometimes a woman simply needed to feel beautiful for her own sake.

Aziraphale, standing in front of the full length mirror in the polka dot bikini, repeated this mantra. Like the basque, the bikini made her feel slightly apprehensive and a little bit sexy. Sexy was not appropriate for an angel, but then neither was sushi, or passing out on the couch after drinking multiple bottles of champagne with a demon. A demon who had bought her a bikini, and who looked disturbingly good in a sleek, black one piece.

She thought of Crowley’s lean, fashion model figure and sighed, slouching and pushing out the pudge of her stomach. “Such a dumpy lump. What _was_ she thinking?”

She took off the bikini, got dressed and went out into the garden to look busy. The new rose bushes hadn’t died yet, which she counted as small victory. According to Crowley the thing to do was to drop a couple of banana peels into the bottom of the hole when you planted them. The peels rotted down and released potassium into the roots. It was a mystery to Aziraphale how anyone discovered these things in the first place, but that was humans for you. As Crowley was fond of pointing out, every now and again you’d get that one human who saw some everyday thing – the water rising in a bathtub, the steam pouring from the spout of a kettle, an apple falling from a tree – and see what that thing _meant_. And that, Crowley would say, was when things got interesting.

In Aziraphale’s experience, what this usually meant was that Crowley was about to get all dewy eyed about Leonardo da Vinci. Again.

Crowley – along with the baby – was lurking in the hot house. Out of sight of the household, she’d abandoned Nanny’s pikestaff posture in favour of one of her usual complicated, wiggly slouches, her feet up on the wrought iron bench, revealing an unexpected slit in the side of her pencil skirt. Her black snakeskin kitten heels were on the floor, and she was happily fanning her arched throat with a fig leaf. When she saw Aziraphale come in she held a finger to her lips. The antichrist was sleeping sweetly in his pushchair.

“Shh,” said Crowley, _sotto voce_. “I brought him down here to see the quails, but he dozed off.”

“Quails? What are you talking about?”

Crowley pointed. A small, striped bird was pecking at the dirt of a flowerbed. Aziraphale vaguely remembered having seen them before, but had assumed they were sparrows or something. “Oh, them,” she said, and watched the little bird. “Doesn’t seem to be too bothered by him, does it?”

“How’d you mean?”

“They’re God’s creatures,” said Aziraphale. “One would have thought they’d…react in some way.” She nodded to the sleeping Warlock. “To his presence.”

Crowley swallowed a yawn, her glasses sliding down her nose. “What? Like me and horses, you mean?” she said. “Yeah, I did think about that, but I think Hollywood might have oversold that whole ‘animals freaking out over the Antichrist’ bit. He seems fine with them. I take him down to the Wetlands Trust and the neigh-neighs can’t get enough of him.”

Aziraphale raised an eyebrow. “Oh dear. You’re calling horses neigh-neighs now?” It was inevitable, really. Crowley would never have admitted to it, even if you held her upside down over a pool of holy water by her toenails, but she was surprisingly good with children.

“No, not horses,” she said. “Hawaiian geese. That’s what they’re called. Look it up.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” said Aziraphale, and started – quietly – tidying up plant pots.

“They’re named after the noise they make, although it doesn’t sound anything like a neigh to me. It’s more like…” She made a low, nasal honking sound deep in the back of her throat. Aziraphale glanced anxiously at the baby, but he didn’t stir. “Sort of like that,” said Crowley. “They’re very friendly. They’ll get up on the bench and sit next to you. And they’ve got this sort of plushy neck thing going on, like a cuddly toy. Almost extinct at one point. He loves them.”

“I was under the impression that geese were rather awful,” said Aziraphale, fighting the urge to laugh.

“No, not these,” said Crowley. “They’re very docile. Curious. Also delicious, I’m told, which is probably how they almost became extinct. You should see them. They make these little _Jurassic Park_ noises.” She honked again, and Aziraphale started to dissolve into giggles. “What?”

“No, nothing,” said Aziraphale, and the need _not_ to laugh and wake the baby was making it much, much worse, like a fart in church. “Nothing at all.”

Crowley’s sceptical look was nothing short of hilarious.

“Do you remember the garden, Crowley?” said Aziraphale.

“Of course.”

“When you slithered up to me on that wall, did any part of you think that one day it might come to this? Doing goose impressions in a greenhouse while dragged up as a satanic nanny?”

Crowley laughed, and it burst out of her in a goose-like honk that convulsed them both even further. “Shh, don’t wake the antichrist,” said Aziraphale, and Crowley fled, slithering in stockinged feet on the flagstones, hand over her mouth to hold in the laugh. Aziraphale followed, and once they were safely out of the greenhouse they both exploded. “Are you all right?” said Aziraphale, when they’d both got their breath back. Crowley removed her glasses to wipe her streaming eyes.

“You have to laugh, don’t you?” she said. “Otherwise you’d never stop fucking screaming.”

“Something like that,” said Aziraphale. “Is my mascara all over the place?”

“Here. Let me do it.” Crowley removed a black, lace-trimmed hanky from the sleeve of her blouse and went to work, a full nursery spit-wash, complete with dainty little licks of her pointed red tongue. She wore no mascara, presumably because nobody saw her eyes behind her glasses, but her eyebrows were two perfectly defined sweeps of black, tapering to pin sharp ends. Her sharp cheekbones were artfully shadowed and highlighted, and her thin, finely shaped lips were painted a dark, old Hollywood red. The changes – from male to female – were subtle but striking. The narrower jaw made her cheekbones look wider and her already large eyes even larger. The blade of her nose was slightly blunter, but whenever she was thinking she did that thing with her chin, a thrust of the lower jaw that almost returned her profile to the more familiar masculine.

“How do you do it?” Aziraphale said. “All this…female stuff? The body, the face, the…everything?”

“Oh, it’s not hard,” said Crowley, leaning back against the arm of a nearby bench. “You know what your problem is? You think you’re in drag. You’re too attached to a male corporation and you’ve spent too many years hanging around gender bending theatres and music halls. Forget drag. Put it out of your head. You’re a woman now.” Her eyes flicked up and down over Aziraphale’s new figure. “I mean, I’m assuming you’ve done the whole…”

“Yes. Obviously.”

“Top to…”

“…bottom, yes.”

“Good,” said Crowley. “Then get used to it. Settle into it.” A sly smile curled the corners of her painted lips. “I bet you haven’t even looked at it, have you?”

“Looked at what?”

“Your fanny, Fell.”

“No. I can’t say that I have.”

So far Aziraphale’s attempt to make sense of the tingles of feminine flesh had involved several erotic paperbacks from the nineteen nineties, specifically written with women in mind. For some reason they all started off the same way: a woman in an unsatisfying relationship would dump her boring boyfriend, then she would draw herself a lengthily described bubble bath, helpfully undress so that the author could describe her breasts, and then masturbate. Sexual awakening subsequently followed, although in many cases it wasn’t exactly clear how or why, especially to Aziraphale, whose sexuality more or less started and ended with masturbation in a bubble bath. She’d meant to give it a go in the new corporation, but found herself more interested in trying to analyse the literary tropes of the nineties erotica. After the wanky bubble bath there would usually be a one night stand – ostensibly the heroine’s first in many cases – and some tentative experiments with lesbianism, often in a swimming pool, for some reason that Aziraphale suspected might have a lot to do with D.H. Lawrence. Most things were.

“Do you think that’s…necessary?” she said. “Rummaging about down there?”

“Why not?” said Crowley. “Might help you settle into your new corporation a bit better. See what you’re working with, and all.”

“Yes. I suppose that might be helpful.”

“Just pop a hand mirror between your legs and say hello.”

“Right. Is that…? Okay.” Aziraphale couldn’t remember if anyone had done that in the books. She couldn’t remember a specific example, but then these books were about the experiences of human women, and not about those of angels who had spent most of their long existence presenting as male. “Have you ever…done that?”

Crowley shrugged. “Sometimes, yeah. Don’t really need to, though. I’ve always been very comfortable with my vajayjay.”

“It all seems _very_ complicated.”

“Nah. That’s just something men say because they’re too incompetent to find the clitoris. It’s not like you can miss it. It’s right there at the top. It even _looks_ like a tiny penis in some cases. If that doesn’t say ‘for a good time, press this button’ to a man, then I despair.”

“No, I don’t just mean the clitoris,” said Aziraphale, somewhat shaken by how knowledgeable Crowley seemed to be about all of this stuff. “I mean…all of it. It’s a whole new social minefield to navigate.”

“Oh, right. I see what you mean. Yeah, it’s definitely that.”

“I _do_ like the underwear, though, don’t you?”

“Meh, I can take it or leave it,” said Crowley. “Mostly leave it. I don’t generally bother.” She cocked an ear. “Oh shit. Is that the antichrist?”

Aziraphale was more interested in Crowley’s lack of underwear, but there came a faint, low grizzle from inside the greenhouse. “Sounds like.”

They went back in. The baby had stirred from his sleep and wouldn’t be consoled, so Crowley hoisted him onto a narrow hip and tried to pacify him with his dummy. “There, now,” she said, as Warlock consented to suck and peered around him with slitted, sleepy eyes. His cheeks were very red, and other than the dummy he looked like some fat old lord snoozing off a heavy lunch in the wingbacked armchair of an exclusive and expensive gentleman’s club. “Wasn’t that a lovely sleep?” said Crowley, in her Nanny voice. “Did you dream of the pit, my lambchop? All the red hot pokers you’re going to thrust into the bowels of the damned when the time comes? Yes, you did. Yes.”

“Nonsense,” said Aziraphale, stroking the baby’s cheek. “He was dreaming of puppies. And cupcakes. And the simple joys of human kindness.”

Warlock spat out his dummy. “Bugger,” he said, quite distinctly.

“He keeps saying that,” said Crowley, catching the dummy with a practised hand. “And I’m pretty sure it’s my fault.”

“Well, you _are_ supposed to be influencing him towards the bad, my dear.” It was a shame he was going to end the world one day. He had such darling dimples. “He copies you because he loves you. Do you love Nanny, Warlock?”

Warlock burbled something affirmative. Crowley glared.

“That was below the belt,” she said.

“I have four months of unthwarted wilings to catch up on,” said Aziraphale. “You said you so yourself, so you can hardly complain when I break out the big guns, as the expression goes.”

The baby began to whine softly. Crowley held him up by the armpits and gingerly sniffed his nappy-padded rump. “Speaking of below the belt,” she said, grimacing. “Smells like the Lord of Darkness has had a little oopsy in the pants department. Better go and clean this up.” She popped him in his pushchair and started the complicated process of strapping him in. He was not happy about this development. “And you,” she said to Aziraphale. “Get to grips with your undercarriage, if you want to feel like a natural woman.”

“Got it,” said Aziraphale. “Oh, and forgive me – I quite forgot: thank you for the bathing suit.”

“You’re welcome,” said Crowley. “Can’t wait to see you in it. Unless you’re up for a spot of skinny dipping, of course.”

“No. You’re not serious, are you?”

“About skinny dipping? I’m always serious about that.”

“No,” said Aziraphale. “I mean about…about not wearing any underwear?”

Crowley slid her feet back into her shoes and grinned. “What can I say? I’m a liberated lady. I like to feel the wind beneath my wings.”

* * *

That night Aziraphale followed the train of her thoughts back to the source, and dipped into D.H. Lawrence.

It wasn’t helpful. For all the book had caused a scandal at the time, _The Rainbow_ didn’t go into a great deal of detail about what Ursula and Winifred had actually got up to together. They swam a lot, sometimes naked, kissed once and then…it rained? Then they discussed politics and religion and the inevitable push and pull between man’s animal nature and the growing mechanisation of the Industrial Revolution, because it was a D.H. Lawrence novel, after all. Thankfully the nineties paperbacks were a bit more forthcoming on the subject of lesbianism, although it was nice to have her suspicions confirmed about all the skinny dipping: it had been D.H. Lawrence’s fault, after all.

And now Crowley was at it, too. She was Up To Something.

“Or just hot,” Aziraphale said, adjusting her bosom. Nobody, from Lawrence to Black Lace, had covered this part of being a woman. The area under her breasts was like a swamp, and there didn’t seem to be anything she could do about it. The prospect of a cool dip in the pool was extremely tempting.

Then, of course, there was the other business. Hadn’t got round to that, yet. She’d taken herself off to bed with a stiff gin and tonic, and then disappeared into D.H. Lawrence. Now she lay naked under a single sheet, eyeing the empty glass and wondering if she needed more gin. “Don’t be so absurd,” she said. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. You’re over six thousand years old and it’s not like you haven’t seen a vagina before. You saw the original vagina, for heaven’s sake. Live and in action. It’s not as though Adam and Eve were shy.”

She took a deep breath, reached for the hand mirror beside the bed and opened her legs.

There wasn’t much to see, just a puffy seam beneath a covering of silver blond hair. She spread her legs wider and the seam parted a little, revealing pink inside, pricking her curiosity. Heart racing, she reached down and spread the lips with her fingers, a touch that set her blood thumping even faster. The impression was surprisingly botanical. The edges of the inner lips had the same delicate wrinkling as the petals of an iris or a gladioli, and she was pleased to find it rather beautiful.

Was Crowley’s like this? The hair would have to be a different colour, of course, or perhaps she shaved. Aziraphale thought of that high cut black bathing suit, and the silky pale skin at the edge of the legholes. Was Crowley really wandering around the ambassador’s residence with no underwear? Obviously she wore stockings, but what about the rest? No underpants? No bra? It seemed indecent, and exciting, and the thought made something clutch deep in the mysterious space between Aziraphale’s newly feminine hips. The deep ripple spread to the outside, and she saw the muscles in the mirror twitch almost imperceptibly.

“Oh,” she said, surprised. “Well. Hello.”

She spread the inner lips apart. They were very soft and quite wet. Inside she could just make out the entrance, and at the top – as advertised – was the main attraction.

Crowley had been right about that. It did look a lot like a tiny cock. It even had a foreskin of a sort. Aziraphale – who knew her way around a penis, after all – gently folded it back with a finger, and gasped at the sensation. The little glans beneath was exquisitely sensitive, and it set something rippling inside her again. She pressed harder with her finger, and let out a soft “Ooh,” of surprise and pleasure. Her whole spine, from skull to tailbone, seemed to be shivering from the inside, and she had a vague premonition of how _big_ this was going to be when it happened. Aziraphale, never one to flee from enjoyable new physical sensations, began to rub purposefully at her newly-discovered clitoris, the image in the hand mirror fuelling her enthusiasm. She had settled into what felt like it might be a fruitful sort of rhythm when the alarm clock next to the bed rang loudly, startling her and putting her off her stroke.

“Oh, fu…dge,” she said, and silenced the clock. It was ten to three, and she was supposed to meet Crowley at the pool at three.

She briefly debated trying to finish the job, but decided it would be something much better explored at leisure. This was her first experience of sex in a female body, and she wanted to enjoy it. So she rose from the bed, put on the polka dot bikini, wrapped herself up in a large, brightly coloured beach towel and headed out.

The estate was sleeping. Even the lawn – cool beneath her bare feet – seemed to be sighing in its sleep. She padded around the edge of the Jacobean knot garden, to avoid the gravel paths, and could just make out the blue glow of the pool beyond the rise.

At first glance the pool seemed empty, save for the small robot that roamed back and forth across the bottom, cleaning the tiles. Then she heard a soft sloshing sound, and there was Crowley, wet hair, bare shoulders, arms folded on the edge of the pool as she peered out. “Hi,” she said. “There you are.”

“Here I am. Don’t suppose you want to tell me what you’re up to?”

“Up to?” said Crowley, who didn’t appear to be wearing a bikini top. “Why would I be up to anything?”

“You’re a demon. You’re always up to something.” Aziraphale dropped the beach towel and advanced self-consciously towards the edge of the pool. Crowley’s large, yellow eyes swept over her figure with a sensual calculation that made her cheeks burn hot, in spite of the cool of the night. Crowley’s narrow bum was white beneath the shining blue water. She didn’t appear to be wearing bikini bottoms, either. It was on the tip of Aziraphale’s tongue to ask her if she’d been reading the same late twentieth century paperbacks as she had. “And where is your bathing suit?” she said, instead.

“Somewhere,” said Crowley, treading water. “Not on me.”

“Obviously,” said Aziraphale. She had no idea where to look.

“Get in, angel. The water’s lovely.”

Conscious of making a splash, Aziraphale walked round to the shallow end and down the steps into the water. It was cool but not too cold, and more than welcome in this heat. An electronic light blinked next to a sun lounger beside the pool. “What’s that?”

“Baby monitor,” said Crowley. “If his Lordship so much as farts in his sleep, I’ll hear it.”

“You really have thought of everything.”

Crowley paddled over. “That’s what I do, baby,” she said, with a grin, stretching out on her back. “Wiling is my business, and business is good.”

She lay spread out like a starfish in the glowing blue water. Her breasts were barely there, two nubby red nipples pointing at the night sky. She hadn’t shaved, at least not completely. Between her legs was a tidy trimmed stripe of dark red hair, and it drew the eye like a temptation. Her thighs were wide apart and as she bobbed in the water Aziraphale saw far more than she needed to.

“And that’s quite enough business to be going on with, thank you,” Aziraphale said, averting her eyes and trying to be prim.

Crowley twisted around in the water and sighed. “It’s just a cunt. It won’t bite you, contrary to popular myth. Speaking of, how did you get on, bathing beauty?” She nodded vaguely downwards. “Did you say hi to the hoo-ha?”

“I did, as a matter of fact.”

“And?”

Aziraphale, conscious of how strangely buoyant her new breasts were, dipped down in the water. “Well, it’s definitely a vagina.”

“Were you expecting something else? What did you think?”

A lot, as it turned out. This new corporation seemed extremely sensitive. The nipples stiffened at the slightest breeze, the breasts made it impossible to sleep on your stomach, and whatever was going on between the legs made perfect sense of why most major religions seemed to be so terrified of female desire. It wasn’t nearly so localised as the male version, a growling engine that occupied most of the space between her hips, loosened the inside of her thighs and turned her spine into a trembling filament. “Let’s just say I have a much deeper understanding of the works of Georgia O’Keefe,” she said.

Crowley raised a wet eyebrow. “Are you saying some form of…blooming took place?”

“If you’re talking about orgasm, then no. I didn’t get that far. I tried it out, but I’m afraid the time got away from me and I remembered I had to meet you.”

For once Crowley was speechless, and as always it was a pleasure to shock her. Crowley could be annoying sometimes, waving her bottom around the place, slinking with intent and acting like she was the authority on all forms of iniquity, as though Aziraphale didn’t own rare editions of some of the most notorious books ever printed. Such was the satisfaction in shutting the demon’s mouth that Aziraphale splashed over to the side of the pool. “You know what?” she said, reaching beneath the water to remove her bikini bottoms. “You might have a point. This dip probably _would_ be a lot more refreshing without the bathing suit.”

She was quite proud of the way she reached behind herself and uncoupled the hooks of the bra as though accustomed to doing so. The wet bra landed on the concrete edge of the pool with an unerotic splat, but her breasts floated like waterlilies, pink and white. Her nipples kept threatening to bob to the surface, and she couldn’t stop thinking about the same water lapping at the edges of Crowley’s wet lips.

“Fucking hell, Fell,” said Crowley. “Have you been at the gin?”

“No,” said Aziraphale, even though she had. Just a bit. “It’s like you said. We’re going to be here for a while. I may as well get used to the corporation.” Crowley’s eyes, Byzantine gold against the backdrop of blue, lingered over her breasts. Aziraphale stifled a giggle. “Do you think they’re supposed to float like that?”

Crowley drifted closer, as though getting ready to circle, the way she often did, like a snake setting her coils in place before she began to squeeze. Only this time she couldn’t complete the circle, because Aziraphale’s back was against the side of the pool. Her small breasts were bigger than they’d looked when she was lying down, her hard nipples as delectably red as her mouth. Aziraphale wondered what colour her clitoris was and felt a jolt. To make matters worse, Crowley’s uncovered eyes were hungry. Oh dear. And she’d thought it would be easier as a woman, somehow. Crowley had been the stuff of her sexual fantasies for so many centuries now that she forgot what it was like _not_ to want her, which was why she’d picked this disguise. She had assumed that female lust would somehow be more manageable than male, and that for the duration of this little enterprise she and Crowley would stand side by side like a pair of spinsterly salt and pepper shakers, but already she could see that it wasn’t going to work out that way. Trust Crowley to turn out to be a huge lesbian, on top of everything else.

“They’re fantastic,” Crowley said, openly staring. She was so used to hiding behind dark glasses that she’d forgotten how her eyes gave her away.

“Apparently I’m an E cup,” said Aziraphale, seeking refuge in silliness. “Is that good, do you think?”

“Very. Mine are just bee stings.”

“They’re charming,” said Aziraphale, as Crowley glided even closer, pressing her against the side of the pool. “Your nipples are like little raspberries…” She felt something pummel gently against the back of her thigh and startled. “Ooh…what was…”

Crowley grinned like the serpent she was. “There’s a pool jet that comes out just there,” she said, with an evil wink.

“Crowley!”

“You were the one complimenting my nipples,” said Crowley. She was far too close now, close enough for Aziraphale’s breasts to brush against her. “We’re going to be spending a lot of time together, angel.”

Oh dear. So much for the quiet, pastoral spinster life. “Yes,” said Aziraphale, moronically. She was already light-headed.

“Do you trust me?”

Aziraphale, appalled to discover that women-shaped beings were just as susceptible to their brains decamping to their nether regions as men-shaped beings were, attempted to gather her scattered wits. It was a complicated question at the best of times. “I’m sure I shouldn’t,” she said. “But…”

“But?” Crowley pushed. Her small chest crowded up against Aziraphale’s.

“Yes. Yes, I think I do.”

“Good,” said Crowley, very quietly. Beneath the water, her hand was on Aziraphale’s hip. “I have an idea.”

Aziraphale almost sunk. They’d had these moments before, little electrically charged instances, their wattage slowly creeping up over the centuries until that sixties neon moment in Soho when Crowley had more or less outright propositioned her. Only that time they’d been clothed and in public, and now they were stark naked and alone, and the electricity between them could have shorted out the entire national grid. Crowley gently pushed her sideways, so that the pool jet pulsed between her legs. Aziraphale almost sunk again. This time she reached out instinctively, her arm wrapping around Crowley’s waist. They were so close, breasts touching, Crowley’s breath cool on her wet lips, and Aziraphale decided she didn’t care any more, because it was almost the end, after all. And what if it all ended before they’d even kissed?

Crowley leaned in and traced the edge of Aziraphale’s ear with her thin, red tongue. “Okay,” she said. She was so little, so light, her body like a white ribbon in the water. “Here’s what’s happening. Harriet’s paranoid that her husband is after you.”

“Excuse me?” said Aziraphale, momentarily derailed. As if she gave a toss about the state of the ambassador’s marriage _now_. “What’s that got to do with…?”

She didn’t get any further. The lights of the baby monitor winked from the other side of the pool, and a series of halting sobs rang out across the water. “Shit,” said Crowley, and stiffened. She listened intently and then – to Aziraphale’s despair – the sobs turned into a long keening whine. “Gotta go,” said Crowley, already splashing to the side of the pool. She scrambled out and snatched up a towel.

“Well, what was the idea?” said Aziraphale.

“Tell you later,” said Crowley, as the whine wound up and up, the sound spiralling higher, like an air raid siren from the Blitz. “Gotta run. His master’s voice.”

And with that she turned and hurried back towards the house.

“Well, fu—” said Aziraphale, and stopped herself just in time. Marvellous. “Fairly sure this never happened in D.H. Lawrence.”

She turned to get out of the pool, then froze. The pool jet had been fun from behind, but from the front it was quite literally breathtaking. “Ooh.” Aziraphale settled herself directly over the stream of water and hung on to the side. “Oh my.” Suddenly the evening wasn’t looking like quite such a loss after all. “Oh my goodness. Oh yes…oh…_yes_…”

* * *

Warlock’s limited vocabulary expanded as the leaves began to fall. He mastered Dada, Mama, ducks, Nanny and – most significantly – no. The word _no_ rang out a lot that autumn, usually at bedtime, bathtime or when Nanny wanted him to eat something.

There was pea soup for lunch, and Warlock wasn’t having any of it. He sat strapped in his high chair on the grey flagstone patio, angrily planning his escape. He wanted his mother, but she – along with his father – was further down the lawn, having tea with a visiting bishop. Aziraphale lingered on the patio and pretended to sweep up leaves. Crowley had had her hands so full with the baby lately that neither of them had had time to talk about what had happened at the swimming pool, and the one time Aziraphale had mentioned it Crowley had just made one of her vague, vowelless noises and told her to forget it – it had been a stupid idea anyway.

The autumn weather had made all the wasps sleepy and spiteful. One buzzed too close to the child for comfort and Aziraphale absently-mindedly steered it away, before remembering that she wasn’t supposed to be performing even tiny miracles. “Oops,” she said, under her breath, and then went on to wonder if she should have been protecting Warlock from wasp stings at all. He was, after all, the Adversary, but there was no art to finding the mind’s construction in the face, and Warlock’s face was – in general terms – rather adorable.

“Come along now,” said Nanny, who was starting to sound rather frayed. She held a spoonful of pea soup in her hand. “Open wide like a hellmouth…there’s a good boy…” She made tiny screaming sound effects as she steered the pea soup closer to the target. “Here come the damned, into the mouth of Hell…”

Warlock closed his mouth.

“_Warlock…_”

He gritted his tiny teeth and wriggled.

“Warlock, I am going to count to three…”

“NO! NO WANNA!”

Aziraphale and Crowley watched as a plastic bowl of pea soup described a perfect parabola in mid air, spinning as it went and spattering the patio with bright gobs of _Exorcist_ green. “Oh dear,” said Aziraphale, and reached for the garden hose. Still, at least the boy’s satanic lineage was no longer in doubt.

“No bedtime stories for you tonight, young man,” said Crowley, wiping a smear of pea soup from her cheek. She looked very much like she regretted not being able to turn into a snake right now. She was wearing a pretty, high necked blouse, a maroon and black striped affair with chiffon ruffles at the throat and three-quarter length sleeves. There was soup all over it.

“Here,” said Aziraphale, putting down the hose and advancing with a handkerchief. For a split second some unangelic part of her had toyed with the notion of turning the hose on Crowley, making that blouse cling to her chest and making her nipples stand to attention with the cold water. Because of course Crowley wasn’t wearing a bra. As Aziraphale went to repair the damage, she saw that the black stripes on the blouse were sheer, so that Crowley’s tits were playing peek-a-boo with the maroon stripes. Crowley was doing her best, with the kitten heels and the pencil skirts and _The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie_ accent, but ultimately she was still literally a trollop from Hell.

Warlock screamed as though someone had set him on fire. Down the hill, Harriet Dowling turned her head to look. “He’s fine,” Crowley called, freeing the enraged child from the high chair. “Wee tantrum. Nothing to worry about.”

The antichrist slipped from her grip and started to run down the lawn. He moved with the bandy-legged, rubber-kneed gait of one who – until only recently – had been able to casually stuff his own toes into his mouth, but his speed was impressive. And presaged a whole lot of extra trouble for Crowley. It was, as she was fond of saying, all fun and games until they start getting _mobile_.

Harriet scooped him up. The breeze caught the ends of her long brown hair and the crepe de chine hem of her terracotta tea dress, and she looked – for an instant – like the very picture of happy motherhood. “That poor woman,” Aziraphale said. “She’s going to be so disappointed when she finds out he’s the son of Satan.”

“Kids disappoint their parents all the time,” said Crowley, wiping down the high chair. “Our boy’s just an overachiever, that’s all.”

“Our boy? I assume you mean _your_ boy. The child’s nothing to do with me.”

Warlock promptly pissed on the family tableau by continuing his tantrum. Whatever he had wanted from his mother, he clearly hadn’t got it, but as yet lacked the vocabulary to voice disappointment. Harriet Dowling once again looked up the hill to Crowley, and Aziraphale winced. There was a bishop down there, and the presence of the clergy had always made the demon especially rambunctious. “Be nice,” she said, trying not to sound too pleading about it.

“No,” said Crowley, and set off down the lawn.

Aziraphale, rake in hand, followed at a discreet distance. Unfortunately no distance was discreet when it came to Ambassador Dowling. His gaze always lingered a little too long and too often over Aziraphale’s chest, and he clearly fancied himself a gentleman, because at one point she’d overheard him saying he preferred blondes. As she orbited the small party on the lawn he quickly succumbed to her gravity, turning to look every chance he got.

Warlock, dummy now securely in mouth, rode snuffling at Crowley’s hip. “Such a dear boy,” the bishop was saying. “And he has your eyes.”

“Oh, do you think so?” said Harriet. “We always thought he was the spit of Thad’s baby pictures.”

Aziraphale watched with interest, curious to see if the bishop – or Warlock – had any idea whether each was in the presence of the enemy. But the baby just fisted a handful of Crowley’s blouse, moving the stripes and giving the bishop an eyeful of rude, red demon nipple beneath the black chiffon. Crowley saw him looking and bared her sharp white teeth in a smile. She really couldn’t help herself sometimes. She probably wasn’t even wearing knickers either. Just striding about the place with that saucy red stripe of pubic hair bared to the elements. And she was standing with her feet apart. Aziraphale shivered, remembering how Crowley’s open legs had parted the flesh when she floated on her back. The wind beneath my wings, she’d said. Or the water beneath them. That pool jet had been a revelation, about many things, not least what Crowley had been up to when hanging on the edge of the pool, waiting for Aziraphale.

The ambassador was looking at her again. Aziraphale gave him a thin, uncertain smile and went on raking. Harriet screamed.

Everyone stopped what they were doing. Aziraphale instinctively hurried over and saw what the fuss was about. A tiny grey-brown snake had slithered over Mrs Dowlings shoes. Aziraphale looked at Crowley, who shrugged, as if to say the thing was nothing to do with her. Warlock, sucking furiously on his dummy, was watching with the kind of steady, neutral interest that Aziraphale had seen on the faces of bored Roman emperors who were waiting to be amused by a gladiator show, hopefully one with lots of blood, screaming and a well-timed climactic decapitation.

“Oh, it’s quite harmless,” said Aziraphale, who had been doing a bit more reading lately, and not just D.H. Lawrence. “It’s not even a snake.” She reached down and the slow worm wound adoringly around her fingers. She’d always been good with animals. “It’s a slow worm. A legless lizard. I’m surprised to see him out and about, actually. Be time for hibernating, soon.” She held the reptile up to the child’s curious gaze. The other reptile discreetly rolled her eyes behind her sunglasses. “Look, Warlock. Look at that dear little face. Isn’t he sweet? Aren’t God’s creatures so very beautiful?”

Crowley, unheard by anyone but Aziraphale, made a quiet gagging noise.

“Please put it down, Miss Fell,” said Harriet Dowling, who remained far from convinced of the beauty of this particular creature. “Ugh. Reminds me of some backwoods church where they do that thing with the snakes.”

“Serpentising, Harriet,” said the ambassador. “It’s called serpentising.”

“_Behold I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy_,” said Aziraphale. “_And nothing shall by any means hurt you_.”

Even the slow worm stared at her. Aziraphale blushed, conscious that she may have sounded a bit too angelic for comfort. “Luke,” she said, by way of explanation. “Chapter ten, verse…nineteen, I believe?”

Dowling beamed. “You got it,” he said. “And there’s a story in Acts where Saint Paul gets bitten by a venomous snake, and he shakes the critter off into the fire. When he doesn’t die, that’s when people see he’s the real deal.”

“Or perhaps the snake wasn’t venomous at all,” said Harriet.

Crowley pointedly said nothing. She wasn’t venomous, although she was – thankfully – flame retardant.

“‘Look at that dear little face. Behold the wonder of God’s creatures,’” she mimicked, that night in the cottage, when the baby was asleep and she’d sauntered down the hill in search of booze. “Honestly. I get that you’re good, but do you have to be so bloody _wet_ about it?”

“Don’t you lecture _me_ about overegging the pudding, madam,” said Aziraphale. “You could have at least worn a bra in front of a bishop.”

Crowley waved a hand. She lay draped across an armchair, long legs thrown over the arm, her snakeskin pumps abandoned where they’d fallen. Tonight they were drinking a fifteen year old Glenmorangie, and the amber-gold spirit was the same colour as her uncovered eyes. “I can’t help it,” she said. “There’s something about a cassock that brings out the jezebel in me. Why do you think I bit Saint Paul?”

“Your nipples were pointing at him. Were you even wearing pants?”

“I never wear pants in the presence of the clergy,” said Crowley. “It’s a cheap thrill, but a demon has to get her jollies where she can find them. Nice job staring at my tatas, by the way.”

“I wasn’t!”

“You were. And it helps.”

“Helps with what?”

“My plan,” said Crowley. “This place is full of eyeballs. Everyone’s watching everyone. The security detail is everywhere, at all hours. Even at three o’clock in the morning.”

Realisation dawned, and hot on its heels came mortification. “You mean…” Aziraphale said, turning scarlet. “At the pool…?”

“Yep. I was trying to make it look intimate.”

“Oh my God,” said Aziraphale, pressing her knees together.

“You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. You’re a full figured woman in the prime of her life. Unfortunately for Thad Dowling, you’re not his type, but fortunately for Mrs Dowling’s peace of mind, you’re not going to fuck her husband. Because a) you’re a lesbian and b) you’re already banging the living daylights of that flat-chested but bafflingly foxy Nanny Ashtoreth.”

Aziraphale moaned. “Oh, this is so embarrassing.”

“No, it’s not. It’s the twenty-first century, angel tits. No reason we can’t hoist the rainbow flag over the ambassador’s residence.”

“No, I’m not talking about that.”

“Then what?”

“That night at the swimming pool,” said Aziraphale. “After you left to deal with the baby. I…” Oh, this was _beyond_ embarrassing. “I…was…Iwassittingonthepooljet.”

Crowley frowned. “What?”

“I was sitting on the pool jet, okay?”

“Oh,” said Crowley, and then – more slowly as the information settled in – “Ohhh.”

“_Yes_.”

“You didn’t…?”

Aziraphale nodded, squirming with shame. “Yes,” she admitted. “Quite hard, actually.”

“Well, well Miss Fell,” said Crowley, with a very demonic smile. “I didn’t know you had it in you.” She raised her glass in a tipsy salute. “Good for you. At least now we know all your downstairs business works the way it’s supposed to.”

“On reflection that was probably a mistake,” said Aziraphale, who could have done without the distraction. On the bright side, she’d never been cleaner, although she was beginning to worry that she was in danger of falling in love with the shower head. “I’m really not used to managing a female corporation. I should never have let you talk me out of my original idea.” She narrowed an eye. “This wasn’t part of your wiles, was it?”

“Me?” said Crowley. “Course not. I _need_ you to be good at this. Or at least as good as I am. Equal and opposite, remember? Cancel each other out. How was I supposed to know that Thaddeus J. Dowling is horny for buxom blondes in Birkenstocks?”

This was bad news for Harriet, who was brunette, slender, and who – as far as Aziraphale knew – didn’t own a single pair of orthopaedic sandals. It was also bad news for Aziraphale, because her quoting the Bible hadn’t seemed to have doused the ambassador’s ardour. If anything, it had inflamed it. The next day he came sniffing around the orchard, wearing a broad smile and an eyewatering quantity of aftershave.

“I wanted to say thank you,” he said.

“Whatever for?” said Aziraphale, who was pretending to check the fruit trees for pests.

“For sticking up for me.”

“I…wasn’t aware that I had.”

“You did,” said Dowling. “With the bishop, and the serpent. Harriet’s the one with the Mayflower ancestors, you see. Her dad was a senator. Mine was a preacher, from Kansas. That’s where we used to do the serpentising – snake handling – in the sermons, and she’s always kinda looked down her nose at it. It was nice to have someone who knew their scripture like you did. Proves there’s a basis for it in the word of God, and all.”

“You’re welcome,” said Aziraphale, moving warily away. The ambassador was standing extremely close. “We all find God in our own ways.”

“That we do, Miss Fell. That we do.”

“Personally I’m inclined to steer clear of any religious experience that might involve exposure to some of nature’s deadliest neurotoxins,” said Aziraphale, walking away. “But I daresay it’s all part of life’s rich tapestry.”

Dowling followed. “Are you a religious woman, Miss Fell?” he said. “Frances – may I call you Frances?”

“No,” said Aziraphale. “And yes. I mean yes, and no.” She moved on to the next apple tree. Having run a bookshop in one of the most notorious parts of London, she had dealt with far worse than Dowling before. She was accustomed to the regular annoyance of people trying to buy her out of an extremely expensive piece of central London real estate, and she had her ways of making them go away and never return. The trouble was that those methods – while not exactly miraculous as such – would have left Dowling in no doubt that the gardener was not nearly as human as she was supposed to be. “I think,” she said. “That it would be better if we kept our relationship on a professional level, Ambassador. You see, before I came to you I was…I was at a convent.”

The ambassador oozed closer. Oh dear. “I knew it,” he said. “You have such an air of purity about you.” He reached out and touched her hair.

“Please don’t do that,” said Aziraphale.

“It’s not a sexual thing,” he said, although it clearly was. “You see, my wife’s all wrapped up in the baby, and you…I don’t know what it is about you. You have this aura that I can’t resist…”

“Would it help you to resist if I threw up?” said Aziraphale, swatting his hand away again. “Because that’s a very real possibility, if you keep talking like that.”

“You’re so beautiful, so pure, so angelic, so—”

“—busted,” said Harriet.

Thaddeus Dowling turned to look. His wife was standing in the middle of the path, a basket of russets on her arm and a scowl on her face. Aziraphale hadn’t been so relieved to see someone since Crowley tapdanced into that church back in 1941.

“Harriet…” Dowling started to say, but she stopped him cold with a pointed look. He slunk off back towards the house. “You’re really making a big deal out of nothing,” he said, all in a rush as he passed his wife. She flung a russet apple after him. It caught him squarely between the shoulder blades, but Harriet didn’t get to see it land. She had already turned back on her heel and stood glaring at Aziraphale.

“Mrs Dowling,” Aziraphale said. “Please, _please_ believe me when I tell you that I am not interested in your husband.”

“Get out of here, you flowery twat,” said Harriet, in a low, furious voice. “I will deal with you later.”

Aziraphale fled. On her way out of the orchard she bumped into Crowley, who was picking apples with Warlock.

“Oh no,” said Crowley, seeing the look on her face. “What happened?”

“Dowling.”

“Did you tell him you’re a lesbian?”

“I told him I was…a nun,” said Aziraphale, intimately familiar with the incredulous expression now rapidly colonising Crowley’s face. “An ex-nun. Don’t look at me like that. I was put on the spot, all right?”

Crowley shook her head. “You’re an idiot.”

“Yes, I’m aware. I hope you have another plan, because I’m about to get fired.”

Aziraphale retreated to the cottage. She drank a stiff whiskey and waited. And waited. The late afternoon stretched into evening, and Crowley didn’t come. Aziraphale paced and rehearsed speeches and explanations. She twisted the gold signet ring on her little finger until the skin beneath was sore, and busied herself with a dozen or more pointless activities – rearranging the cups in the cupboard, cutting her toenails and scrubbing the freshly dug carrots next to the kitchen sink. The sun set and she changed into her nightdress, and contemplated the possibility of sleep, even though she’d never really needed it or – unlike Crowley – enjoyed it.

Finally, around half past eight, Crowley appeared. “Where the hell have you been?” said Aziraphale, so relieved to see her that she didn’t question when Crowley put both arms around her and pulled her close.

“She’s watching,” Crowley whispered, directly into Aziraphale’s ear.

“Who?”

“Harriet the fucking Spy,” said Crowley, her hands moving purposefully down Aziraphale’s back to grab her bottom through her broiderie anglaise nightie. “She was coming down here to fire you, but I got ahead of her. And now…” She nipped the lobe of Aziraphale’s ear, making her gasp. “We’re going to show her why you’re not a threat to her marriage.”

“What?”

“Kiss me, you idiot.”

So Aziraphale did. Crowley’s tongue was smooth and nimble and every bit as delicious as Aziraphale had fantasised over the millennia, and she didn’t kiss like someone who was playacting. She kissed like someone who’d been waiting for this for thousands of years, and when she moaned into Aziraphale’s mouth that hungry, feminine engine of desire suddenly revved and roared into life inside the angel. “Crowley…” Aziraphale murmured, and grabbed Crowley’s breast, and then everything got terribly, _terribly_ out of hand.


	3. Oopsy

The angel was an idiot.

Not in all walks of life. If you wanted to know about obscure translations of the Bible or medieval Italian or how to read between the lines of Oscar Wilde’s _De Profundis_, then she was the woman to ask. However, if you wanted to know what to do when a married man came sniffing around your orchard whining that his wife didn’t understand him, Aziraphale was dafter than an entire convention of village idiots who had started the day with a hearty breakfast of lead paint chips, then wandered off for a merry day of licking live electrical sockets and attempting to befriend starving bears.

All she’d had to say was “Actually, I’m gay,” but oh no.

“A fucking _nun_?” said Harriet, who apparently couldn’t believe it either. “I bet that got you even harder, didn’t it?”

Crowley, standing behind the dining room door, sucked her teeth slowly and winced. She had only just got the baby down, and he’d been rattled, what with that infant sixth sense they seemed to have for parental discord.

“For the last goddamn time, Harriet – I didn’t _do_ anything!”

“Oh no. Nothing at all. You just _happened_ to be telling the estate manager that she was pure and beautiful and angelic…”

Technically true, thought Crowley.

“…bet you say that to all the staff, huh, Thad? Do you say that to the security detail? Do you say that to that landscaper with the dandruff? Do you say it to Nanny?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Harriet. Nanny’s fucking scary. And I seriously doubt she’s pure. I mean, she dresses like a trollop.”

Crowley preened. That was the nicest thing the ambassador had ever said to her.

Something – possibly the contents of the cheeseboard – bounced off the dining room wall. “You are _such_ an asshole!” said Harriet. “Such a low rent, backwoods, sexually arrested fucking _asshole_. No wonder you’re chasing fluffy blonde nuns who have probably never even seen a dick in the wild. You wouldn’t know what to do with a real woman if she sat on your face and wriggled.”

Dowling scoffed. “Ohh,” he said. “So _that’s_ what this is all about, is it? I told you, Harriet – I’m fine with that. I’m just not gonna do it after I’ve flossed my teeth, otherwise I have to do it twice and I get receding gums.”

“Fuck your goddamn gums. And fuck you. And especially fuck Maria Von Trapp down there in that cottage. Call the embassy, Thad. Tell them you need a new estate manager. Because that bitch? Is fired.”

If the Dowlings said anything else, Crowley wasn’t around to hear it. She was already gone, hurrying down the path to the gardener’s cottage. It was pitch dark, but Crowley had excellent night vision. As she slipped under cover of the line of tall trees she could hear Harriet behind her, cursing under her breath at the battery-operated torch that the human woman needed to light her way. “…least it was an actual flashlight this time, and not a latex _pussy_…oh my God…”

The light was on in the cottage. Aziraphale was pacing back and forth in the kitchen, and jerked open the door in a panic the moment Crowley knocked. “Where the hell have you been?” she said. She was wearing a modest, knee length white nightie, but the light was behind her and it shone through the linen, outlining in stark erotic detail just why Thaddeus Dowling couldn’t keep his eyeballs to himself.

Crowley flung her arms around the angel. “She’s watching,” she whispered, directly into Aziraphale’s ear.

“Who?” said Aziraphale, who didn’t resist the embrace but was clearly still in Village Idiot Convention mode.

“Harriet the fucking Spy,” said Crowley, her hands sliding down Aziraphale’s back to grab two overflowing handfuls of voluptuous celestial arse. Aziraphale’s curves blazed hot under the linen and Crowley knew she wasn’t going to have any difficulty making this look convincing. She nibbled the velvet lobe of Aziraphale’s ear. “And now we’re going to show her why you’re not a threat to her marriage.”

“What?”

“Kiss me, you idiot.”

Finally, the idiot did as she was told. Her mouth was warm and soft and as soon as Crowley's tongue flickered into Aziraphale’s mouth, Aziraphale moaned and sort of surged into her, a subtle but starving shift of boobs and hips and belly. The warm linen of her nightgown slithered under the pressure of Crowley’s hands, moving the hem higher over her thighs and setting Crowley’s brain on fire. In theory, Crowley thought, when she looked back, this could have been the moment where they stopped. This could have been the moment where Harriet stepped in and caught them, or the moment where Crowley whispered, “Okay, we’ve made our point,” and they would have disentangled themselves, and Aziraphale would have smoothed down her nightgown and everything would have been normal again.

But that didn’t happen, because it was also the moment when Aziraphale grabbed Crowley’s tit.

She didn’t just grab. She _squeezed_. And having squeezed, she fumbled for Crowley’s nipple and tweaked it through the thin screen of black lace. Crowley gasped, and then Aziraphale made a low, needy, greedy sound that must have been very similar to the sounds she’d made when she was wriggling on top of a pool jet.

Crowley kicked the door shut. If Harriet was out there she had either stopped in her tracks or retreated, but Crowley couldn’t have cared less in that instant. Aziraphale’s hem slid higher under her hands and she felt the linen give way to the silk of the angel’s bottom. Aziraphale surged once more, all thighs and open mouth and big, pillowy breasts. Her nightgown was around her waist and she rubbed herself against Crowley’s skirt, while simultaneously trying to pull Crowley’s hair and unbutton her blouse at the same time. They were clawing and pawing at each other, clumsy and frantic and completely out of control, and they should have stopped, but the fact that they hadn’t yet was driving Crowley out of her mind. “I want your tits,” she panted, Aziraphale’s curls sticking to her wet, smudged lips. “Your perfect fucking tits.”

Aziraphale stepped back. She reached down, crossing her arms at the hem, and pulled the crumpled white nightgown over her head and off. The light was on and the blind was wide open and she didn’t seem to care, but she had nothing to be ashamed of. She was a sumptuous collection of curves, stark naked on the kitchen table – rounded thighs, wide eyes, ripe boobs rising and falling in time with her panting breaths. Her mouth was red and messy with Crowley’s lipstick, her nipples pale pink. She opened her legs wider and reached down to touch herself, and Crowley let out a soft cry of shocked delight: she was shaved completely bare. She was a banquet and Crowley barely knew where to start, but Crowley’s hunger knew better than her head, and the next thing she knew she was kneeling, her glasses clattering across the kitchen floor and broad thighs folding around her ears as she dived nose deep into the angel’s luscious cunt.

Aziraphale cried out and arched her back, so shameless and slutty that this had to be a dream or a fantasy. Nothing this good happened in Crowley’s real life, even if it did feel real. Smelled real. Tasted real. Crowley devoured her, her mouth and hands and head full of angel. _I’m fucking Aziraphale_, she thought, and then the words seemed to burrow into her very being, further warming the blood in her veins and the pining heat between her thighs. She pushed her long tongue (I’m) inside, sucking down the slippery, brackish (fucking) taste of her (Aziraphale) like a hummingbird lapping at a flower. Her fingers followed her tongue inside and Aziraphale began to babble and beg – please, please, please – and Crowley found inspiration on the draining board. She grabbed a carrot by its trailing green foliage and nudged it between the angel’s lips. Aziraphale felt the tip, raised her head to see what it was, and then beckoned Crowley on by wiggling her hips downwards. Crowley barely had to push, and watched – half laughing, half dying of lust – as Aziraphale’s hips came up to meet the carrot and her holy pink pussy swallowed the thing almost up to the leaves.

“Please,” Aziraphale moaned. “Please…please, Crowley…”

Mesmerised, Crowley started to slide the carrot in and out. “Please what?” she said. “You’re going have to spell it out, angel.” She teased, withdrawing the carrot, and tickled the angel’s clit with the tip of the vegetable. Aziraphale arched on the kitchen table, knuckles white against the edge, tits pointing at the ceiling. “What do you want me to do to you? Say it.”

Crowley thought it would be harder than it actually was, but Aziraphale – as always – was full of surprises. “Fuck me,” she said, loud and clear, and moaned as Crowley pushed in again. “Fuck me…oh God…please, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me…” She was gorgeous, glorious, her arse bouncing up and down on the table and her big pink marble boobs jiggling. She was so wet that the carrot made the filthiest noises as Crowley fucked her, harder and faster. Crowley could hardly see straight. Her own pussy was screaming for attention, but she ignored it, her whole being focused on banging the loudest and dirtiest possible orgasm out of her angel.

And Aziraphale was clearly on the same page. Her fingers were hard at work on her slick, swollen clit. Six thousand years’ worth of pent up swear words came pouring from her cupid’s bow lips. “Oh God, yes…my cunt’s going to fucking _explode_…yes, there…there, fuck me, fuck me…fuck me, darling Crowley, fuckmefuckmefuckmeImcomi-iiing…”

Her thighs shook wildly, her pelvic floor muscles contracting so hard that they almost jerked the carrot of out of Crowley’s hand. Her arse had barely returned to the tabletop when she caught her breath and said, in a dry-mouthed voice, “Get up here. I want to taste you.”

Crowley tried to scramble up onto the table, but her skirt was far too tight. With a small scream of frustration she grabbed the slit in the fabric and tore the seam all the way to the waistband. She could feel her stockings catch on the old wood table, but she didn’t care. She planted her knees either side of the angel’s head and Aziraphale’s still wet fingers slithered on her hip as she pulled her down. The angel’s tongue was dry from gasping and swearing, but she quenched her thirst quickly between Crowley’s thighs. Her mouth was as welcome as a blessing, her fingers a benediction. She was feeling around in there – conscientious as ever – trying to find Crowley’s g-spot, but there was no need. A couple of flicks of her tongue and Crowley was there, rocking, moaning, throwing back her head and nearly braining herself on the overhead pot rack.

“Ow,” said Crowley, and came so hard that she almost lost her balance and fell off the table. Aziraphale steadied her and held her, murmuring into her wet flesh as she slowed and shuddered to a halt. Crowley hung onto the top edge of the table, her head still spinning with what had just happened. _I fucked Aziraphale. I fucked Aziraphale._ Nope. Again. Different inflection this time. _I _fucked_ Aziraphale._

The blind was still wide open, the window reflecting the scene in the kitchen. Aziraphale lay naked, wet chinned and panting between Crowley’s thighs. The carrot was still sticking out of her vagina like the punchline to that old, dirty joke about the vase.* She turned her tousled head in the direction of Crowley’s gaze, saw the absolute mess they’d made of one another and said “Oopsy.”

That was the moment when it sunk in for Crowley. Those three words – _I fucked Aziraphale_ – suddenly became real. Because only Aziraphale could get banged all over the kitchen table, spew more rude words than Geoffrey Chaucer, and sum up the entire experience with “Oopsy.”

Crowley snapped her fingers and closed the kitchen blind. Somehow Aziraphale – even in her present position – had the nerve to tut about this. “Really, my dear…” she murmured.

“Seriously? You’re going to complain about me using my powers to close the blind when you’re lying there with a carrot sticking out of your foofy?”

Aziraphale blinked. “Foofy?”

Crowley dismounted from the kitchen table. “I didn’t even know you knew the word ‘cunt.’”

“Well, now you do,” said Aziraphale. “Oh dear. There was quite a lot of swearing, wasn’t there?” She reached down and extracted the carrot. “Still, at least it was in the correct context.”

“Context. Yep.” Crowley’s torn skirt flapped open. “Haven’t got a safety pin anywhere, have you?”

“Oh, somewhere,” said Aziraphale, and retrieved her nightie from the kitchen floor. She covered herself up and – now completely returned to her usual sweetly dizzy demeanour – went rummaging in one of those drawers that every kitchen has somewhere. Crowley had built nebulas and knew enough practical applications of physics that – had she ever had occasion to visit CERN – she would have left the team in charge of the large hadron collider in need of a quiet lie down in a darkened room, but there were still laws of the universe that were beyond her. Like where missing socks went, or how every kitchen inevitably sprouted an odd drawer – or at least a compartment of it – completely given over to strange random objects. Back in Mayfair, Crowley’s own kitchen was a stark, aggressively tasteful expanse of stainless steel and black granite. No food had ever been prepared in it, and she kept it around mainly for the purposes of wine storage and because the sound of the garbage disposal was an excellent means of menacing houseplants. Despite this, even Crowley’s kitchen had _that drawer_ – the one that was full of rubber bands, old birthday candle holders, safety pins, novelty pastry cutters, and a roll of butcher’s string she had no recollection of ever buying.

“I could put a stitch in that for you, if you’d like,” said Aziraphale, as Crowley fastened her skirt over her hip with a series of safety pins.

“No, no – it’s fine,” said Crowley. Aziraphale was good at mending, but she had no intention of sitting awkwardly and mostly naked from the waist down while the angel performed tailoring repairs. This situation was already shaping up to be extremely weird. Those three words were still bouncing around in her head, but they had stopped making any kind of sense to her, if they ever had. “I should probably…”

“…oh, of course.”

“Yeah. See if Harriet’s changed her mind about firing you.”

“Yes,” said Aziraphale, smoothing down her crumpled nightie. “Your plan.” There was an awkward pause, and they stood there, face to face, mostly dressed, and with Aziraphale now wearing that vague, slightly nervous smile she usually reserved for dealing with archangels. “Right. Well. Thank you for coming.”

_ Are you serious? I just came all over your face._ “Aziraphale…”

Aziraphale sighed. “Darling, can we please talk about this tomorrow?”

Which meant never, and maybe that was a good thing. Crowley didn’t know anymore. She still wasn’t completely sure what had happened between them, even though the words _I fucked Aziraphale_ were now flashing through her brain in foot high neon letters. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

“All right,” said Aziraphale, and – just to make matters even more awkward – tiptoed up and pecked Crowley politely on the side of her mouth. “Sleep tight. And um…thanks again.”

“Yeah,” said Crowley, reaching for her sunglasses. She staggered off into the night, the neon letters in her head sparking, overloading and catching fire. Yep, definitely fucked Aziraphale. Only one being in the universe could be this weird after sex.

The lights were on in the kitchen. Harriet was sitting there. On the table in front of her was a half empty bottle of Stolichnaya and an official-looking beige manila file. She smelled slightly drunk, but not so drunk as to miss the budget Versace thing now going on up the side of Crowley’s pencil skirt. “What the hell happened to you?” she said.

“Um…” said Crowley, thirstily eyeing the vodka, but Harriet was not forthcoming, reminding Crowley that she was supposed to be undercover here. She was supposed to be a nanny, someone who you could trust not to get pissed and neglect your children. Not the most difficult thing to remember, really, but it got a whole lot harder when your head was full of _I fucked Aziraphale_ and your clitoris was still tingling gently from being licked to orgasm by a freshly-banged angel.

“Right,” Crowley said, remembering that she was supposed to be Scottish. “Well…this is a bit delicate…”

“No shit,” said Harriet. “I went down to the estate manager’s cottage to fire the estate manager. And do you know what I saw?”

“I can imagine,” said Crowley. Oh shit. Now they were probably both going to get fired, on grounds of moral turpitude. At least it would be both of them, but they’d still have to come up with some other means of keeping an eye on the boy.

Harriet tapped the beige file with a fingertip. “Frances Fell,” she said. “Who is she?”

“Excuse me?”

“Embassy background check,” said Harriet, drumming her fingers. “She comes highly recommended by the Royal Horticultural Society, but doesn’t know how to prune a rosebush. Then she tells my husband she was in a convent, but there’s no record here of her ever being a nun. Then…” She gestured to Crowley. “You come back here in the middle of the night looking like this…”

“I can explain,” said Crowley.

“Can you?”

Good question. “We have history, she and I,” Crowley said. Why did Aziraphale have to lie? She was terrible at it. “While it’s true that she was never a nun, unfortunately Frances is a very religious woman, and she has difficulty admitting to herself that she’s a lesbian.”

Harriet softened a little. “Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“It does make things complicated,” said Crowley. “But we’ve been lovers for a very long time, just the same. And I know that she attracts a great deal of male attention, including that of your husband, but I promise you that she’s no threat to your marriage. Despite her denial of her own nature, Frances is – as I believe the expression goes – a gold star gay. Untouched by the opposite sex, and with no interest in experimentation.” She glanced at the embassy background file, and found inspiration there. “Forgive me, Mrs Dowling. I should have told you, but her presence here isn’t entirely a coincidence. I can’t go into detail, but I wasn’t always in childcare, you see. I still have some contacts in the…uh…intelligence community…”

“British?” said Harriet, with a flash of alarm.

“Of course,” said Crowley. “I confess, I pulled some personnel strings in Whitehall to have Frances assigned here, but you see…we’ve been together for so long that she’s…well, she’s the other half of me.”

Harriet got up from the table. “I am so sorry,” she said. “I’m such an asshole.”

“No, dear…”

“No, I am. I’ve been freaking out all over the place because Thad keeps…Thadding. And I know I’ve been batshit since I had the baby, but it can’t be my hormones anymore, can it? He’s eighteen months, for God’s sake. Surely things should have settled down by now?”

“Perhaps you just need a hobby,” said Crowley.

Harriet snorted and reached for the vodka. “Perhaps,” she said. “Or perhaps I just need to be fucked by a man who means it.” She took a swig. “Or at least one who doesn’t piss and moan about going downtown once in a while.” She glanced at Crowley’s torn skirt. “I guess you don’t need to worry about that, huh?”

“No,” said Crowley. “That’s has always been part of the charm for me, I must confess – the quite extraordinary amounts of cunnilingus. Will there be anything else before I go up, Mrs Dowling?”

“No. Thank you, Nanny. Please pass on my apologies to Miss Fell. I’m so sorry about the…flowery twat thing.”

“Of course,” said Crowley, and immediately thought of the green spill of carrot foliage sticking out of the angel’s plump pink twat. The busted neon sign in her head sparked back into life, in capitals this time – I FUCKED AZIRAPHALE – and she drifted upstairs in a daze to check on the baby.

Warlock was out for the count, snoring cutely. She tiptoed out of the nursery and into her adjoining bedroom, conscious that she must reek of sex. She undressed, showered and slipped into bed, then lay staring up at the ceiling for a long time. Her mouth was still full of the taste of angel. “Oh God,” she said, to the dark empty space above her. “I fucked Aziraphale.”

* * *

The sun rose in the east, as usual. The stream at the bottom of the garden continued to flow in its usual direction, and Warlock hurled his breakfast porridge at the wall with a robust overarm lob that was so much like his adopted mother’s throwing arm that Crowley almost forgot that he was the son of Satan. The world continued to turn on its axis, tilting away from the sun as the northern hemisphere entered the winter months. The trees continued to shed their leaves. The clouds continued to blow across the pale blue English autumn sky, and Crowley had still fucked Aziraphale.

The big neon letters had dimmed a bit overnight, but in their place the sense memories had swarmed in. She couldn’t stop thinking about the weight of Aziraphale’s tits in her hands, or the slight rasp of bristle on her tongue as she licked her open.

Harriet came into the drawing room and caught her gazing out of the window. Aziraphale, at the bottom of the lawn, was attempting to rake leaves.

“If you need a moment…” Harriet said.

“Oh, no. I wouldn’t want to be any trouble.”

“It’s no trouble. I can take Warlock for a while. If you need to smooth things over…” Harriet went pink. “And again, please convey my apologies for the flowery twat thing.”

Crowley surrendered, thanked Mrs Dowling and hurried off down the lawn. “Hi,” she said, to the still wide-eyed angel. “We’re lovers.”

“What?”

“You and I,” said Crowley. “We’re lovers. And that you’re still deep in the closet because of your religion. That’s why you lied about being a nun.”

“I didn’t…” said Aziraphale, but Crowley held up a hand.

“You did, angel. You have never been a nun.”

“I was in a monastery once,” said Aziraphale.

“Yeah, as a _monk_. A male monk. And you had that hilarious haircut.”

“I had to blend in,” she said. “Which was difficult, by the way, when I had a demon following me around, giggling like a child and trying to slap me on the tonsure.”

“I couldn’t help it,” said Crowley, following Aziraphale across the lawn and past the covered pool. This was already shaping up to be a bizarre conversation, mostly because it sounded like every other conversation they’d ever had. Before they’d banged each other. “It was a very stupid haircut.”

“It was supposed to be. That’s the whole point of a tonsure.”

“Whatever,” said Crowley, as they walked through the Jacobean knot garden. “Here’s the story. You and I have been lovers for years. I pulled some strings to have you here, because I can’t stand to be without you.”

Aziraphale fluttered. “Oh. Darling.”

“Yeah, don’t take it personally,” said Crowley. “Oh, and I might have hinted that we met through…MI5.”

“MI5?” said Aziraphale, at a volume that startled several nearby quails out from under a bush.

“Shush.” Crowley ushered her through the arch in the garden wall. “How are you so awful at this?”

“You were the one who said we were spies!”

“Ex-spies,” said Crowley, following her into the greenhouse. “And I didn’t say. I hinted. Anyway, look, we kind of are. We’ve been hanging around St. James’s Park feeding the ducks alongside the intelligence community for centuries. And before there was a St. James’s Park we were hanging around shady taverns listening to the likes of Sir Francis Walsingham pull the old bait and switch. When you think about it, we’re practically spies.”

Aziraphale let out a long breath. “Crowley,” she said. “Answer me truthfully. Is this because you want to be James Bond?”

“I could be James Bond.”

“No, you can’t.”

“Could,” said Crowley, conscious of movement beyond the glass. “It’s about time they had a lady James Bond. And I can do the Edinburgh accent.”

“Your current gender presentation is beyond the point, Crowley. I really don’t think even fictional British intelligence are in the habit of hiring literal agents of Hel…llp.” The ‘Hell’ went a bit wonky at the end, due to Crowley mistaking one of the gardeners for a lurking Ambassador Dowling, and placing a hand on Aziraphale’s bottom. “What are you doing?”

“False alarm,” said Crowley. “It’s all right. It’s just that gardener with the biceps.”

“Biceps?”

“You can hardly miss them. Look, just be prepared, okay? I’m pretty sure Harriet can’t wait to tell her husband that you’re not going to be interested in his sexual advances on account of the lesbianism, but it can’t hurt to get caught canoodling every now and again.”

Aziraphale nodded. “Right,” she said. “You have thought of everything, haven’t you? You’re really rather good at this.”

“I have to be,” said Crowley. “Because you’re fucking shit at it.”

“I’m sorry,” said Aziraphale. “But I may as well admit that subterfuge doesn’t come easy to me. I wish it did, but it doesn’t.”

“Well, good luck. Because now you’re going to have to pretend to be a lesbian former spy who’s pretending to be a lady gardener.”

“Oh, no pressure then.”

“And we should probably talk about the lesbian elephant in the room at some point,” said Crowley, who was beginning to feel slightly mad. “On account of how I fucked you last night.”

Aziraphale, who had been spraying a late showing of aphids on a chilli pepper plant, put down the insect spray and turned around. “Excuse me?” she said. “I rather thought we fucked one another, actually.”

“When did you start saying fuck?”

“When it became the only accurate verb to describe what was happening to me on the kitchen table,” said Aziraphale, as starchy as if she hadn’t been enthusiastically rubbing one out while Crowley banged her with a root vegetable. “It was your fault.”

“Uh…how?”

“You kissed me.”

“Yeah, for show,” said Crowley. “You _moaned_. And you grabbed my boob.”

“A little squeeze!”

“Bollocks. You tweaked my nipple.”

“Well, you stuck a carrot in my vagina,” said Aziraphale, and went red. “Oh dear. No matter how many times I say that out loud, it still doesn’t feel real.”

“I know,” said Crowley, relieved to discover she wasn’t the only one. “It…it escalated quite quickly, didn’t it?”

“I’ll say.” Aziraphale sighed. “What on earth are we going to do?”

“I think,” said Crowley, with a feeling of mounting doom. “That we’re probably going to have to talk about it.”

Aziraphale fell silent for a moment. “That sounds rather drastic, dear.”

“I know, but I think it might have to be done. In case we end up inserting things into each other again.”

“Nobody is inserting anything,” said Aziraphale. “Come to the cottage tonight.”

“All right,” said Crowley, and tried to leave it at that, but she was still a demon, after all. “Should I bring a vegetable?”

Aziraphale pointed to the door. “Get out.”

* * *

That night Aziraphale was wearing her silly little round glasses and the unflattering tweed skirt she’d been wearing when she’d first arrived. She was all buttoned up in a high-necked Victorian blouse that had the – probably unwanted – side effect of making her bosom look even more mountainous than it was already. “Some ground rules first,” she said. “We’re not going to have sex.”

“That’s fine,” said Crowley. “Let’s talk.”

The angel led the way into the living room and reached for the whiskey. She looked a lot like she’d made a special effort to look dumpy, but it didn’t work, not now that Crowley had seen everything – her big, pink-tipped boobs, her curving hips and her extravagantly round arse. She was in stockinged feet and the cosy firelight played on the shimmery fabric of her pale, sheer stockings. “Warm in here,” said Crowley, glancing at the fire crackling in the grate. “Is that…is that a red firelight, by any chance?”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Aziraphale waved Crowley to an armchair, and took her own seat opposite. She removed her glasses and sat stiffly on the edge of the sofa, again as though making a special effort not to look mouth-watering. The only trouble was that you couldn’t unbite the apple, and Crowley knew all too well how the taste of forbidden fruit lingered on the tongue. Soft fruit. Pink fruit. Probably wrapped in something lacy and insubstantial.

“Did you manage to mend your skirt?” asked Aziraphale.

Crowley snorted. “Cut the crap, angel. You didn’t ask me here to talk about minor tailoring repairs.”

“It was hardly minor. It was torn all the way up to the waistband. Rather a major sewing—”

“—_Aziraphale_.”

Aziraphale swallowed. “Sorry. I’m talking nonsense, aren’t I?”

Crowley deliberately ignored the question. “We had sex. That’s what you wanted to talk about, right?”

“Yes.” Aziraphale got up and began to pace nervously. “Oh dear. That wasn’t supposed to happen. I don’t know what came over me.”

“Uh…” Crowley peered into her drink and decided to leave that one alone. “Yeah. I wasn’t expecting that either, to tell you the truth. It all got a bit…”

“…out of hand?”

“Yes. Very,” said Crowley, taking sudden fright at the expression of relief on Aziraphale’s face. No doubt she would love an opportunity to pretend this had all been a mistake, which it had, but there was no reason they couldn’t do it again. Was there? “Not that it wasn’t very nice and all…”

“Oh, delightful,” said Aziraphale, prim as a maiden aunt. “Absolutely. I had no idea I was capable of such strong feelings towards root vegetables.”

“Took me by surprise, too,” agreed Crowley. “But let’s be clear…I haven’t…I mean, you’re not going to…you know…Fall, are you? Because of me?”

Aziraphale shrugged. “So far so good,” she said, and blushed. “Or not, as the case may be. I doubt it. I’ve committed every other one of the Seven Deadly Sins, after all. I don’t see why Lust should be especially different. It’s not as though I haven’t done it before.”

“You…have?” said Crowley, momentarily reeling at the thought of what Aziraphale had gotten up to at that incredibly expensive gay club she – or rather he – had joined in the late nineteenth century.

“I have two hands, an imagination and access to almost every dirty word ever written by human hand,” said Aziraphale. “Not sure what you were expecting me to do every Saturday night for the last six thousand years.”

“Oh. Oh, I see.”

Crowley paused and tried to compile a mental list of the angel’s transgressions. Gluttony went without saying: it was by far and away Aziraphale’s favourite. Sloth, too, because – besides stuffing her face – she liked nothing more than closing the bookshop and settling in to do as little as possible while enjoying a sherry and some Schubert. Not to mention that Little Miss Holier Than Thou was prone to Pride, and that Envy came out to play whenever Crowley ordered something in a restaurant that looked more interesting and appetising than what she had ordered. Hadn’t seen much of Avarice in the fiscal sense, but take her to an auction of rare snuffboxes and Aziraphale could Greed it up with the worst of them. “Wrath,” said Crowley. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen you do Wrath.”

“That’s because you’ve never tried to buy my bookshop,” said Aziraphale. “It’s not pretty. I like to avoid it, if possible. Anyway, it’s not the sin, Crowley. It’s…it’s the fact that we’re on _opposite sides_.”

“No, we’re not,” said Crowley, swinging her feet over the arm of the chair. Aziraphale’s gaze lingered on her legs, making her light up. “Not here. Not now. Here and now, we’re working together. For the greater good.”

Ah, and there was Pride, right on schedule. Aziraphale pursed her lips and smoothed down the front of her blouse. “You’re not seriously about to argue that you stuck a carrot in my vagina for the greater good, are you?” she said. “I know you’re an expert on twisting things to suit your purpose, but even you’re not that…twisty.”

“My tongue is.”

“Stop it,” said Aziraphale, but she giggled when she said it, and Crowley – who had spent thousands of years delighting in making her giggle – wondered if it was possible to make Aziraphale laugh and come at the same time.

“You look beautiful,” said Crowley, and the angel glowed. Love was, after all, her element, and it looked good on her. She needed to be bought chocolates and champagne, told she was gorgeous and fucked five times a night.

Her stockinged toes curled into the sheepskin rug at her feet. Her toenails shone pink and polished beneath the thin nylon, and the gloss of the varnish made something feral rumble and purr deep inside of Crowley. Because it was wrong, like so many other things about Aziraphale. Painted toenails were a vanity, and angels were supposed to be above such things, but not Aziraphale. Angels weren’t supposed to covet frilly knickers or sit on pool jets, but you couldn’t keep this particular angel down for long. Her veneer of purse-lipped prudery was just that, a thin varnish no more permanent or resilient than nail polish. She sat with her knees together and her mouth shut, but that wasn’t her, not really, not the essential angel, who was a happy little hedonist who could no more keep her intellectual curiosity in check than Crowley could keep from prodding it. That was the great thing about Aziraphale: she didn’t need much tempting at all. Nudge her towards the apple and she’d put up a token, fluttering effort at shame and resistance, and then proceed to work her way through the whole damn orchard. Same thing had happened here. Crowley had given her an inch – a suggestion about how to get to better grips with a feminine corporation – and Aziraphale had gone the whole nine yards, having loud orgasms in the swimming pool and shaving her pussy.

And when had _that_ started?

“You can’t say things like that,” she said, but her toes were still curled and when she made a conscious effort to stiffen her spine it just drew more attention to her fabulous boobs. She caught Crowley looking and blushed, but her flutteriness was – as always – token resistance. Besides, nothing was ever going to be the same again, not after last night.

“I can,” said Crowley, and removed her glasses. “And I will.” She stretched in the armchair and felt fresh air against her thigh, where the split of her skirt exposed the top of her black hold-up stockings. Aziraphale pretended not to look, but centuries of experience told Crowley that the angel’s butter-soft resolve was melting faster than an ice-sculpture at one of Satan’s wine, cheese and Everlasting Torment dos.

“Are you even wearing underwear?” Aziraphale said, in the precise tone she used when saying things like ‘Are you _really_ going to open that third bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape?’

“Nope,” said Crowley, and slithered off the chair and onto the floor. She crawled across the sheepskin rug to the angel’s feet. “Are you?”

“Crawly…”

“_Crowley,_” said Crowley, although even she had to admit she was pretty crawly at that moment. She had always had a bit of a thing for Aziraphale’s feet. Uncursed, unblemished. Perfect toes and no suspiciously scaly patches. She lowered her head to rub against Aziraphale’s ankles like a cat, and heard Aziraphale’s breath catch. Emboldened, she nosed the angel’s ankles apart, swaying her hips into an invisible touch. A slow pulse beat between her thighs.

“I thought you were trying to avoid the whole ‘crawling at people’s feet’ thing?” said Aziraphale, her heel already cupped in Crowley’s hand. Her stocking tops were lacy, the colour of creamy coffee.

“When did I say that?”

“Golgotha. Thirty-three AD.”

“You have an amazing memory,” said Crowley, trailing kisses up Aziraphale’s instep.

“Well, you know. There were some other significant events taking place at the tiii-iime…ooh, that tickles.”

“Do you want me to stop? I thought we weren’t going to have sex?”

“This isn’t sex,” said Aziraphale, sliding down the sofa cushions. Crowley caught a glimpse of pale lace between her legs, and a whiff of something salt and raunchy. “This is just…I don’t know what it is, actually…”

Crowley unclipped the stocking from the ribboned tabs of the suspender belt, and rolled it down. The lace top held the shape and warmth of Aziraphale’s rounded thigh. Crowley whisked it off over dainty toes, the nails painted sugar almond pink. “Foot stuff,” she murmured, tasting the smooth surface of a toenail with her tongue. “Minor foot stuff.” She drew a big toe into her mouth and Aziraphale oohed and cooed gently like a horny turtledove. “You’ve got lovely feet.” Crowley’s hands moved higher. “Lovely legs.”

Aziraphale slid lower, her thighs opening wider and her skirt catching under her bum. Her knickers were creamy lace this time, an inadequate screen that did nothing to hide the demure pout of her outer lips. “Sexy underwear, too,” said Crowley, rubbing like a cat once more. Aziraphale’s inner thigh was like silk under her cheek, and the hungry smell of her was more than flesh and blood could stand. She’d never been any good at resisting temptation, and she wasn’t even trying. She gasped as Crowley bit the inside of her thigh, and when Crowley’s lips reached the lace she bucked into the kiss, spreading her legs wider, so that Crowley could taste the welling moisture through the fragile fabric.

“Please…” she murmured, and then her hips were off the couch, and off came the frilly knickers. Crowley barely resisted the urge to dive in the way she had before. She wanted to look, to lick, to taste and explore. The first time had been hard and fast and dirty, but she was already stupid with lust at the thought of unravelling the angel slowly, taking her apart piece by piece until she was a drenched, shuddering, moaning mess.

But once again Aziraphale was in no mood for slow. As soon as she felt Crowley’s fingers between her legs those big, greedy, grinding hips came up, trying to swallow her the way she’d swallowed that carrot. The first thing that flashed through Crowley’s mind was ‘how?’, because there didn’t seem to be room in there for what had seemed like a pretty big carrot. Aziraphale was small and tight, but as Crowley felt around she realised that it was because the walls were very thick and soft, as though the angel was as plush and generous on the inside as she was on the out.

She was so wet. The hairless skin on the inside shone as pink and pristine as the inside of a tropical seashell. Her clitoris was smaller and rounder than Crowley’s own, a plump wet pearl that made Crowley’s mouth water. Crowley slid her fingers in and out, spellbound as the angel cried out and spread her thighs even wider. She leaned in and started to lick and suck, and it was much, much better than that time with the carrot, because now she could feel every twitch and ripple inside Aziraphale.

Aziraphale’s arse was on the very edge of the sofa. She was bucking and moaning, fucking Crowley’s face and fingers with hungry strokes of her hips. “I hate to tell you,” said Crowley, coming up for air. “But I think we might be having sex again.”

“I don’t care,” said Aziraphale, wriggling urgently. “I _need_ to come. Oh…oh there, _there_…oh my God, is that…?”

“G-spot,” said Crowley, and sank down between her thighs again. She slid her fingers out and Aziraphale let out a thin wail of disappointment, but she had no idea what was coming next. Once you got past the eternal damnation, there were some perks to being the serpent of Eden. Like the tongue.

Crowley rolled that thing all the way out, snakey, slender, almost prehensile. With her fingers at work on Aziraphale’s clit, she pushed her tongue deep inside, tasting and exploring her in a way that no human could. The intimacy of it caught Crowley off guard: it was as though she was tasting the chambers of the angel’s human heart, blood hot, wet and vulnerable. She could feel the orgasm building in the tension of Aziraphale’s hips, in the way her clitoris was drawing back under her thumb, and she snaked her tongue around until she found that newly discovered spot in the front wall. She pushed, rubbing hard with the tip of her tongue, and felt the tension give, slowly, slowly, like a dam springing a leak that turned into deeper cracks. Aziraphale’s thighs trembled, her hips moving with a steady stroke. She was silent, for once, as if the fierce build of her climax had stolen her voice. Her heels – one bare, one stockinged – dug into the rug. Her bottom was off the sofa, her hips in the air. Her breath came out in a thin, airless squeak, but Crowley felt her come. She not only felt it, but she tasted it, rippling on her tongue and pulsing against her lips.

Aziraphale crashed back down to the couch, her skirt around her waist and her inner thighs glistening in the firelight. She licked her dry lips and swallowed. “Right,” she said. “Your turn.”

Crowley tried to scramble to her feet and almost fell over. “Fuck,” she said, reaching for the button. “Remind me not to keep trying to do this in a pencil skirt.” She unzipped and wriggled out of the tight skirt, thrilled by the way Aziraphale’s eyes immediately fastened on her bush. She slid off her black satin blouse and Aziraphale gave a hungry little cry and reached for her.

“Leave the stockings,” Aziraphale said, as Crowley slipped astride her lap. Crowley moaned at the touch of her hands, almost tipping over into delirium when Aziraphale nuzzled over her breasts and sucked on her nipples. “Tell me if I’m doing this right, won’t you?” Aziraphale said, her hand between Crowley’s legs. The flesh was so soft and streaming wet that it made a lewd, liquid noise as Aziraphale parted the lips and pushed in, in, deep and sweet and so, so good, her fingers uncurling and exploring inside. The sound that exploded out of Crowley’s mouth was frankly embarrassing in its neediness, but she was too far gone to care. She swayed forward on her knees, grasping the back of couch, fucking herself on the angel’s fingers.

“Not much you could do wrong at this point,” she managed to say, before another moan stole her breath. Aziraphale’s thumb found her clit and rubbed, and Crowley howled, snaking her hips so hard that she almost fell off the angel’s lap.

“Careful,” Aziraphale said, and put her free hand on Crowley’s arse, steadying her. Her fingers had found a rhythm now, fucking Crowley in time with the strokes of her hips, and Crowley could feel the world narrowing, tightening in on the delicious, elusive spaces inside her cunt and brain that would tip her over the edge. She was breathing hard now, the sex noises loud, wet and dirty in the quiet cottage living room. Aziraphale’s hand splayed on her bottom, and a fingertip brushed the creased rim of her arsehole. She must have seen Crowley’s eyes widen at the touch, because she said “No?” and Crowley – already starting to come – said “Yes,” and said it again and again and again as the angel slid a finger up her arse. Aziraphale was everywhere, three fingers in her pussy, one up her bum, a thumb on her clit. She was stuffed, cored, fucked to pieces by those prissy, blunt tipped angel hands, and as the shudders subsided she had to beg – no more, no more – because it was too much, too good.

Aziraphale discreetly withdrew. “Well,” she said, wiping her fingers on Crowley’s hip. “I don’t pretend to be an expert, but I think that was definitely sex.”

“Mm.” Crowley slumped forward. Her spine felt like melted milk chocolate, her inner muscles still pulsing here and there, sending lovely warm aftershocks all the way through her body.

“Why don’t we make ourselves more comfortable?” said Aziraphale, and snapped her fingers. The next thing Crowley knew she was lying on a pile of cushions in front of the fire and Aziraphale was up and off the couch, heading for the kitchen.

“Angel…”

“You did the blinds,” Aziraphale said, over her shoulder, as if that made it okay.

Crowley sighed, and realised she was far too well-fucked to protest. She stretched in the firelight, drying the inside of her thighs and the wet curls of her bush. She heard the clink of ice in the kitchen and frowned, puzzled. The closest Aziraphale ever came to heavenly wrath was when someone either dog-eared a first edition or Crowley attempted to add rocks to a single malt.

Aziraphale returned, one stocking still on, skirt creased. She had an old-fashioned glass in each hand. “I thought this might amuse,” she said, setting down one drink on an end table and handing the other to Crowley. “I remembered the recipe after you said we were going to be godfathers. Amaretto and scotch over rocks – they call it a Godfather.”

Crowley sipped. “Tastes like an offer I can’t refuse,” she said. “Why are you still wearing so many clothes?”

“All in good time, dear.” Aziraphale unbuttoned the ugly blouse and slipped out of it. Underneath she was wearing a surprisingly sexy lace bra, and Crowley held her breath for the blessed moment when the catch popped open and those spectacular jiggly angel tits swung free. They were huge, gorgeous, dropping gently under their own weight, the large nipples pale pink around the edges and darker at their tips. When Aziraphale bent to unroll her remaining stocking her breasts fell forward like ripe fruit. She caught Crowley looking, caught her eye and blushed.

“I should tell you,” she said. “You do look an absolute treat like that, in nothing but your stockings.” She unclipped her suspender belt at the waist and pulled it loose, like a frilly version of one of her crap magic tricks. “Why is it, do you think, that a woman in nothing but her stockings is a gloriously seductive sight, but a man nude except for his socks is completely absurd?” She wriggled out of her skirt and – finally naked – joined Crowley beside the fire. She stretched out on her side, her curves larger than life.

Crowley, unable to resist, reached out and traced the graceful down and up of waist and hip. “What were we going to talk about?” she said.

“Hm?”

“When we were going to talk, earlier. What were we going to talk about?”

Aziraphale licked her wet lips. “Oh. Right,” she said. “Well, I was thinking that we needed to talk about why we shouldn’t have sex with each other, but then we sort of…you know…”

“Had sex with each other?”

“Yes. Again.” She sipped her drink and peeked up, her nose still in the glass. In the warm, soft glow of the fire her blue eyes looked black. “Do you think…do you think there’s a possibility that this might happen again?”

“Definitely,” said Crowley.

“Really?”

“Pfft, yeah. I mean, we _are_ women, to all intents and purposes.”

“Definitely,” said Aziraphale.

“There you go then. We can go all night. Don’t have to mess around with refractory periods. We’re good to go whenever.”

“Oh, absolutely,” said Aziraphale, trying – and failing – not to look too pleased about the prospect.

“And we’re already naked,” said Crowley. “And there’s booze. And you’ve got the whole red firelight thing going on here, not to mention a fabulously fat bottom…”

Aziraphale laughed. And glowed a bit. A lot. “Crowley. Really…”

“What? It’s a distinct possibility. I’m just saying.”

“It was inevitable, really,” said Aziraphale. “All that pent-up sexual energy. I mean, I know that angels aren’t supposed to be sexual beings, but I’ve lived among humans for over six thousand years…”

“…well, yeah. And humans are…”

“…very sexual beings. Yes. Extremely.” She reached for a fur lined blanket that had appeared from somewhere, and shook it out over their naked bodies. “I admit,” she said, as she snuggled down among the cushions. “I didn’t always understand what the fuss was all about, but then you did that thing with your tongue.”

“Ah, that,” said Crowley. “Yeah, that’s always been a hit with the ladies.”

Aziraphale giggled. “Well, it’s like you say,” she said. “We _are_ going to be seeing a lot of each other.”

“We are, yes.”

“I know we’ve never worked in such close quarters for such a long time before, but perhaps we might have to accept the possibility that this is going to…keep happening.”

“It might, yeah,” said Crowley, trying to conceal her delight at hearing this. It didn’t do to be too withholding – that was Aziraphale’s job, after all – but on the other hand it wasn’t a good idea to signal that right now she was getting a wahoo from several different parts of her body and brain at once. “And we _are_ pretending to be lovers.”

“There you are, then,” said Aziraphale, and moved closer. She smiled, florid and sloe-eyed in the firelight, her lush body wriggling closer beneath the blanket. Her boozy almond breath fanned Crowley’s lip and then she did that thing again, that flowing, surging sexy thing when she opened her mouth and seemed to pour herself into Crowley’s arms as they kissed. It was only the second time they’d kissed, too, which seemed strange, for all they’d fucked each other silly. As her tongue curled against Crowley’s, Crowley felt a flicker of heat in her heart that told her that this was already going to get _very_ complicated, but right now she couldn’t bring herself to care. She was kissing the angel next to an open fire and it was the most romantic thing that had ever happened to her.

All the same, she asked. “So what’s this about?”

“Mm?” Aziraphale nosed in again, licking at the corner of her mouth. She was all tits and hips and pillowy softness. Absolutely beautiful.

“Cuddling,” said Crowley. “Is there also going to be…cuddling?”

“Oh, I think there ought to be, don’t you?”

“Very much,” said Crowley. “Very much…cuddling. It’s very…” Aziraphale was on the move again, nuzzling downwards to kiss her breasts. Which was more than fine, because Crowley was struggling with eye-contact right now. “…very…very important. Ah…” Aziraphale sucked on her nipple, making her shiver, and she watched – dying quietly of love and lust – as Aziraphale lapped and toyed and nibbled gently with her pearly teeth.

“I love your little boobs,” Aziraphale murmured, and dipped her fingers into her drink. She wet Crowley’s nipple with whiskey and amaretto and licked it up, then – with a gleam in her eye – sprinkled the booze like holy water between Crowley’s breasts, letting in trickle downwards. She followed the trail with her mouth, tossing back the blanket as she went. “Do you think I might…” she started to say, her lips against Crowley’s navel.

“…_yes,_” said Crowley, remembering how to speak in a hurry.

“…get to grips with all the relevant parts.” Aziraphale gasped softly as Crowley spread her legs. “Oh, my dear…” Her fingers began to explore. “How lovely you are.”

She looked as though she was studying a wine list, her gaze educated and just the right kind of greedy. Without taking her eyes off Crowley she sipped her drink, then lowered her head to taste. Crowley felt the sting of the spirit and the salve of her tongue, and a strange, feral noise poured out of her mouth. Aziraphale raised her head. “Is that okay?”

“More than okay…” Crowley moaned. She was dissolving, puddling into hot liquid under the angel’s tipsy tongue. “Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t ever stop…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Two women are having tea. One woman sees her husband walking towards the house with a bouquet. “Oh no,” she says. “Flowers. I’m going to have to spend the night lying on my back with my legs wide open.”  
“Why?” says the other woman. “Do you not have a vase?” (I know. It's a terrible joke. I'm so sorry.)
> 
> Also, apologies - will not be updating on the weekend of December 14th, as I have a novel to work on and I need to get paid. Back on the following weekend before Christmas, and hope to see you then!


	4. A Little Bit Of Love

In the small hours, Crowley sobered up, took her leave and hurried back up the hill to shower, scrub the smell of Scotch from her gums and resume taking care of the Antichrist. Aziraphale nodded off for the first time since the Council of Trent, and then woke up confused by the temporary interruption of time. Virtue was supposed to be vigilant, and Aziraphale couldn’t help but worry that her lack of virtue had somehow also dented her vigilance. If it hadn’t been for the slight, pleasantly stretched ache between her thighs and the taste in her mouth – whiskey, sweet almonds and Crowley – she would have sworn she’d broken the habit of a lifetime and had an actual dream.

But she hadn’t. She’d done that. She’d lapped booze from the shallow, pulse-warmed valley between Crowley’s small, tip-tilted breasts. She’d sucked on her raspberry nipples, slurped whiskey and amaretto from the cup of Crowley’s navel, then refilled her mouth with liquor and dived between Crowley’s thighs. She had thrust three fingers into Crowley’s wet, elastic cunt and licked and sucked and played with her clitoris until Crowley swore and arched and came, with her hips bucking and her long white body serpentine in the firelight.

After that they went upstairs, because Crowley – with a strange, sweet reticence – had asked for it. “Do you think we could do it in your bed this time?” she’d asked, as tentative as if she’d been asking for some twisted sexual favour from the darkest parts of de Sade. So they had, and Crowley had fucked Aziraphale again, long taper-tipped fingers filling her and stretching her open. It seemed to be never ending. As soon as one was done the other would need attending to again, like a supremely erotic version of painting the Forth Bridge. Somewhere in the back of her mind Aziraphale knew that there would a price to pay for all this sin, but she was too dazed to dwell on it right now.

She still felt soft and slippery between her legs. Curious, she reached for the hand mirror, wondering if all that stretching last night had made a difference. It hadn’t, although the lips were slightly swollen, and her clitoris looked pinker and plumper, the wet skin shining as though it had been polished by Crowley’s tongue. It looked – if such a thing was possible – extremely pleased with itself. “Well, I never,” Aziraphale murmured, giving it a little stroke in celebration. “I had no idea a vulva could look _smug_, but there you are. Good for you.”

Aziraphale got up. She made the bed, had a shower and drank two nice, strong cups of tea before going about her day. A stiff breeze had blown up during the night and there were even more leaves to rake, and she had floors to sweep and pots to empty now that the tomato plants had more or less finished. As she made her way to the greenhouse she heard Crowley’s laughter, blown downhill from the house. Crowley was standing on the terrace at the top of the lawn, calling out cooing, Nannyish encouragement to Warlock, who was pedalling his new tricycle up and down the flagstones. She was holding onto her hat and stood poker straight once more, perhaps even stiffer and taller than usual. It was then that Aziraphale realised Crowley was wearing higher heels than usual – the ‘fuck-me shoes’, as she’d called them, and now Aziraphale understood why. Crowley looked like she could start a riot simply by uncrossing her ankles.

Flustered, Aziraphale drifted on her way. She wasn’t alone for long, though. When she heard the tap of high heels on the stones behind her, she turned around too fast, smiling too widely, only to discover that it wasn’t Crowley, but Harriet Dowling.

Mrs Dowling wasn’t alone. Her husband was with her, several steps behind and wearing a guilty expression. Aziraphale’s first thought was that she was about to get fired.

“Mrs Dowling, Ambassador…” she said. “Is something wrong?”

It was Harriet Dowling’s turn to look sheepish. “I would like to apologise, Miss Fell,” she said. “About the whole…flowery twat thing. I’ve been under a lot of stress lately and I’m afraid I sometimes take it out on the wrong people.”

“Oh, not at all,” said Aziraphale. “Please. Think nothing more of it. We all say things we regret sometimes. I can get jolly salty myself, under the correct circumstances.”

“Thank you,” said Harriet, and shunted her husband forward. “And Thad would also like to apologise for the workplace sexual harassment.”

“It was not…” Dowling began, but stopped when his wife incinerated him with a _look_. “Right,” he said, turning crimson and struggling to meet Aziraphale’s eyes. “I’m…I’m sorry about the…you know…the sexual harassment.”

“Quite all right,” said Aziraphale. “As long as it doesn’t happen again.”

“It won’t,” said Harriet, with feeling.

“Absolutely,” said the ambassador. “Will not happen again. I promise you that, Miss Fell.” He gave her an ingratiating smile. “I understand you’re a lesbian anyway.”

“Apparently,” said Aziraphale.

“Cool. Good. Good for you.” There was a long, awkward pause, but Dowling – ever the diplomat – took it upon himself to fill it. “So…uh…what’s your handicap?”

Aziraphale blinked at him, wondering if she was about to enter the world of disability discrimination in the workplace, as well as sexual harassment. Harriet Dowling sagged with shame at her husband’s side and pinched the bridge of her nose in a way that Aziraphale now knew meant she was about to have ‘one of her heads.’ “Oh my God, Thad,” she said. “Just because she’s a lesbian doesn’t mean she’s going to play golf with you.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever played golf,” Aziraphale said, later, when Warlock was down for a nap and Crowley had escaped into the gardens for a break. “I never saw the point of it. It always struck me as a way to suck all the fun out of a pleasant stroll in the country.”

Crowley frowned. “Have you been reading my memos?”

“Oh. That was you, was it?”

Crowley spread her arms wide. “Ta da.”

“I might have known.”

“There’s nothing like being stuck in a bunker on the dogleg ninth to rub the shine off even the purest human soul,” said Crowley, steadying herself on Aziraphale’s shoulder so that she could shake a pebble out of her towering shoe. “I’ve heard archbishops swearing like navvies. It’s great.”

Today she wore a neat, narrow black suit, and a net-trimmed, shallow crowned sailor hat was carefully pinned to her red Marcel-waves. She wore black leather gloves and her stocking seams were as straight as arrows, her jacket buttoned all the way up to the throat so that only the frill of her black chiffon blouse showed above it. She had never looked more Nannyish, or – perversely – more seductive, because Aziraphale now knew what _wasn’t_ under those clothes. Nothing but stockings. No bra under that sheer blouse, and no panties, so that her red stripe of wiry pubic hair must have brushed against the lining of her tight skirt as she walked.

“Nevertheless,” Aziraphale said, once again light-headed with lust. “I have no idea what golf has to do with being a lesbian.”

“Nothing,” said Crowley. “It’s just a stereotype. It’s like having a penchant for tartan, and Birkenstocks…” She trailed off and laughed. “Oh my God. How did I not see this sooner?”

“What?”

“All those centuries I thought you were presenting yourself as a very gay man, but it turns out you could just as easily have been a heavily disguised lesbian.”

“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re rambling about,” said Aziraphale, as they turned into the path to the cottage. “I don’t even play golf.”

“No,” said Crowley. “But you do eat pussy.”

“Behave.”

“No.”

Aziraphale stopped walking to better search for her door key. Crowley had also stopped walking, but she had also started slinking. She slipped out of Nanny’s posture so easily that it made Aziraphale think that her spine must have behaved like one of those trick magic wands where a single shake could make the thing go from rigid to apparently melting. She started to circle, wiggling on her high heels, hips all over the place. “I’m not wearing any underwear,” she said, brushing a hand over Aziraphale’s rear. “What are you up to tonight?”

“Accounts,” said Aziraphale, finding the key and starting to walk again. Crowley slunk after her, now slinking with purpose and intent. “I have to do payroll for the garden staff.”

“You can do that at any hour. You don’t sssleep.” Oh dear. She was hissing now, the way she’d hissed last night when the ends of her yes, yes, yeses had sounded like something sizzling. High heels, no knickers, and Aziraphale already weak at the knees at the thought of bare nipples against black chiffon, and that naughty, salty ginger quim bared to the elements. She wondered if Crowley’s looked as smug as her own had, although it had to be said that the smugness was wearing off now, last night’s satisfaction giving way to fresh, fierce want. Never mind Pandora’s box – she was rather worried about what kind of chaos her own was going to cause.

“What are you doing?” she said.

“What?” said Crowley, as if she wasn’t being seductive on purpose.

“You’re hissing, and wiggling. And circling. Are you…are you _tempting_ me?”

“I can’t help it,” said Crowley, a whine creeping into her voice when she realised she’d been caught. “It’s been over a year since I last tempted someone. You can’t expect me not to want to do it. It’s my nature. It’s like expecting you to pass by the scene of a nasty road accident without healing someone: you can’t _not_ do it, because it’s who you are.”

Aziraphale winced. She had been very aware of who she was lately, especially in the wake of the carrot incident. She had never been the most scrupulously correct angel in the firmament, but she was fairly sure Heaven would take a dim view of loud, sweary orgasms caused by a demon wielding a root vegetable. The worst part was that whenever she thought about it she didn’t feel nearly as ashamed of herself as she knew she should. Her feelings were intense and complicated, not least when she’d consigned that carrot to the compost bin. It was absurd, she knew, but she’d ended up murmuring a little prayer over it as she did so. Theirs had been a brief connection, but an intimate one, and her pelvic floor muscles still quivered fondly whenever she recalled the encounter.

“We don’t have to give into our natures, Crowley,” said Aziraphale, unlocking the door. “Isn’t that the whole point of this experiment of ours?”

“Which experiment?” said Crowley. “The one where we’re trying to mould the human nature of the Antichrist, or the one where you stuck your pinkie finger in my bottom?”

“I didn’t hear you complaining.”

“Yeah, I was mostly just amused that you crook your little finger even when you’re almost wrist deep in a demon. Like I was a cup of Earl Grey or something.”

Aziraphale gave her a baleful look. Crowley hovered on the threshold like a vampire. “Are you coming in?” Aziraphale asked.

“Depends,” said Crowley. “Are you going to stick your finger up my bum again?”

“Only if you’re good.”

“That’s not fair,” said Crowley, removing her hat. It was pinned in place with a long silver spike that looked as though it had once been used to torment witches, and probably had. “I’m a demon. I’m never good. I’m already at a disadvantage.”

“Then try your best,” said Aziraphale. “Or try to be good at being bad.”

Crowley closed the door with her foot and unzipped her skirt. “That,” she said. “Sounds a lot like something I could do.”

* * *

The boy was growing.

That Christmas he was two and a half, and made an appropriately satanic mess of the village Nativity tableau by escaping from his manger and demonstrating exactly why they referred to it as the Terrible Twos. “I told you we should have used a fucking Tiny Tears doll, Vanessa,” Aziraphale overheard the vicar saying to his wife afterwards. “Why did we have to involve the Ambassador’s hellspawn brat in the first place? And the live donkey? Also a mistake.”

The rough beast, having slouched towards Bethlehem, had – on arrival – evacuated its bowels, much to the amusement of all the children present. Warlock had got caught up in the hilarity, so that by the time the angels came to tell the shepherds to go to Bethlehem they had a hard time making themselves heard over the Baby Jesus, who was telling everyone who would listen – and mostly those who didn’t want to – that the donkey had done a big poo.

Crowley gave Warlock a standing ovation.

Winter gave way to spring, then summer again, and Warlock learned more words. He walked more and fell over less, and Aziraphale and Crowley watched him intently for evidence of his true nature. It would reveal itself at some point, Crowley said, but so far it hadn’t. So far Warlock liked cartoons. He liked ice cream and cars, and whined when Nanny told him it was time to get out of the paddling pool. He went dotty for chocolate, and was appalled to the point of red-faced rage by the notion that one day he might be obliged to tolerate broccoli. He seemed a fairly mundane child, but as such he was still fascinating, as growing things always are. Aziraphale found herself so absorbed by him that she forgot what she’d been worried about in the first place – falling feathers, a whiff of brimstone, a sign that somewhere she had done something unforgiveable.

But there was no such sign. She’d done things she hadn’t dared dream about before, and she’d done them with a demon, her hereditary enemy. She and Crowley had rummaged around in each other’s warm bodies to their heart’s delight and beyond, and yet whenever Aziraphale stood naked in front of the mirror, her wings were as pristine white as they had been when she was a new minted angel, and – in truth – she wasn’t even looking at them. She was looking at the body that was the source of so much joy, the rounded hips, heavy breasts, wide thighs and the coy pink notch between them. Every inch of it had been marked out for delight in some way by Crowley, not just her breasts and her lips and her cunt, but the nape of her neck, the soles of her feet, and the fine, thin skin on the inside of her wrists. Sometimes, in the wake of an orgasm, she tried to feel soiled and couldn’t manage it. She only felt pampered and pleasured and perhaps a little muddy – at worst. A little more complex than the righteous angel she had tried and failed to be, a creature who was all the wiser for understanding that black and white could blend into infinite shades of grey. She sometimes thought that this must be a lot what being human must be like, and thought it funny – that she’d lived among humans for thousands of years, but it had taken a demon to make her feel like a person.

She slept now, too, having watched Crowley at it and seen how much she seemed to enjoy it. She slept mostly for the pleasure of waking up, warm and slow and endlessly cosy, and sometimes even had the luxury of company. Crowley – who spent most her time at the mercy of a three-year-old – savoured slow awakenings more than most. It was a lazy summer Sunday and Aziraphale had been looking forward to it, too, because she’d planned a picnic.

Aziraphale had always wanted to go on a romantic picnic. It felt like the kind of thing one ought to do, when one was having an affair. And she was. While she knew she should be as horrified at her lack of rectitude as Warlock was at the prospect of eating vegetables, her coquettish heart couldn’t help but flutter whenever she thought of herself as someone who was having _an affair_. Same things happened when she took a moment to savour the thought that she had _a lover_ – toes curling, silly sighs, absurd fantasies of feeding each other strawberries and champagne.

Crowley had perked up at the champagne part of Aziraphale’s proposed champagne picnic, but had made fewer encouraging noises about the prospect of having to get out of bed on her day off, so they had decided to meet one another halfway. They had their picnic in bed and it was everything Aziraphale had ever dreamed. Better, in fact, because while she’d always yearned to eat choux pastry swans and drink pink champagne in the company of a lover, she had never dared imagine that she’d do while naked. And with a lover who insisted on licking whipped cream off her nipples.

They’d been rather creative. Aziraphale had tried to slurp champagne from the hollow beneath Crowley’s ribs, with little success, because Crowley had kept giggling and spilling champagne all over the bedspread. Crowley’s experiments had been more successful. She’d pushed strawberries inside Aziraphale and then left them to marinade while she licked cream off her breasts. Then she’d gone down, hooked out the strawberries with her long, dexterous tongue and ate them. Then she ate Aziraphale, and the result had been…messy.

“Knew it,” Crowley said, flopping down triumphantly on the bed. She wiped her chin with the back of her hand. “Squirting is real. All I had to do was get you wet enough and horny enough, and let your pelvic floor muscles do the rest.”

Aziraphale moaned, open legs going slack as she came back down to earth. “I’m not entirely sure what just happened,” she said. “But I definitely liked it.”

Crowley laughed and sat up. “Want some more champagne?”

“Yes, please. I still have no idea how my mouth gets so dry when everything else is so wet.”

Crowley went downstairs to fetch another bottle. Aziraphale sprawled out on the big, brass bed and watched the dappled sunlight play on the sloped ceiling. She was covered in strawberry stains and a residue of whipped cream was sticky on her skin, but once again she couldn’t seem to make herself feel tarnished. Filthy, yes, but delightfully so. All the same, she couldn’t help thinking that there _ought_ to be more of a problem with what they’d been up to.

The champagne cork popped. Crowley came back up, still stark naked. Her body was exquisite – one of those graceful, bony, almost breastless figures that sashayed up and down catwalks in London, Paris and New York. Her little breasts were tilted like ski-jumps, so that there was always something deliciously impudent about the angle of her pointed red nipples. She had sharp, freckled shoulders, barely there hips, and legs and legs forever. As always, though, the best part of seeing Crowley naked was her uncovered eyes. She had spent so much time hiding behind glasses and veils and helmets that she had never learned how to hide the emotions in her eyes, so that whenever she took off her glasses her face went from theatrically stoic to comically expressive.

“Do you realise,” said Aziraphale. “That we still haven’t _actually_ talked about what we’re doing here?”

Crowley passed her a fresh glass of champagne and curled up on the bed beside her. “What do you mean?”

“This. Us. The…”

“…constant shagging?”

“Yes. That.”

Crowley gave a quiet snort and did that thing with her jaw, that defensive slight thrust of the chin that said she was fine, thank you very much, and that you’d better not press the question if you knew what was good for you. Her eyes, though, said something else, although it was hard to tell in that moment: they were on their second bottle of champagne and Crowley had kicked the party off with Long Island Iced Tea. “We’re undercover,” she said. “Working together. These things happen sometimes.”

“Do they?”

“Absolutely. Happens all the time in James Bond.”

“Crowley, you are not James Bond.”

“Yeah, okay,” said Crowley. “Rub salt into the wound, why don’t you? I’m just saying…there’s a lot of boot-knocking goes on in the world of espionage. Deep cover agents.”

“Are you sure?” said Aziraphale. “I thought they were more likely to poison one another with umbrellas?”

This time there was no mistaking the expression in Crowley’s eyes. Outright confusion. “Umbrellas?”

“Yes. I think it was a Bulgarian, although I could be remembering wrong. What happened, you see, was they had an umbrella with a tiny needle on the end, only the needle was dipped in one of the deadliest poisons on Earth. All they had to was prod him with it on a crowded train – hard enough to break the skin – and that was that.”

Crowley laughed. “Okay, _that_ never happened.”

“It did.”

“It didn’t. I’ve heard of anything so ridiculous. If you’d told that spy plot to Ian Fleming he would have shaken his head and walked away sadly. And probably given you a look of pity before he did so.”

“Nonsense,” said Aziraphale. “You’re talking about a man who wrote about retainers wielding razor edged bowler hats, for goodness’ sake. It’s a million times less absurd than a young woman suffocating to death by being painted gold. I’m sure that doesn’t happen.” She recalled some heavily alcoholic evenings in Montmartre. “I saw lots of people painted gold at the old arts balls in Paris in the nineteen thirties, and they didn’t die.”

“What? Ever?” said Crowley, rolling onto her stomach.

“Don’t be obtuse. Of course they died eventually, but my point is that it wasn’t from being painted gold by Doctor No.”

Crowley gave her a long, disgusted look. “Goldfinger, Aziraphale. It was _Goldfinger_. For hell’s sake, the clue’s in the execution method.” She stifled a champagne burp and narrowed a large, yellow eye. “Anyway, what were you doing in Paris in the thirties?”

“Absinthe,” said Aziraphale. “At least, I think it was absinthe. Distinct wormwood tinge about the proceedings, definitely. Lots of naked people running around covered in nothing but body paint, which was brave of them, really. It was rather chilly.”

“Yeah, great,” said Crowley. “So the whole of Europe was sliding into a war even worse than the previous one, and you were off getting snockered on absinthe in Paris?”

“I never said I was good at my job,” said Aziraphale, stung. “At least I was _conscious_.”

“Partially. I know how absinthe benders go.”

“You’re not the only one who’s bad at her job, you know.” Aziraphale helped herself to a raspberry and vanilla macaron. “And don’t look at me like that, I’ve seen you. When he fell off his tricycle in the driveway and got a kneeful of gravel…”

Crowley glowered. “That was legitimate training,” she said. “Incandescent rage at inanimate objects is one of the most important weapons in the arsenal of any self-respecting evil overlord.”

“I wasn’t talking about that,” said Aziraphale, who now fully understood why Warlock had been screaming “BAD GRAVEL!” while thrashing the driveway with a stick. “Hurt it more than it hurt you, dear,” Crowley had crooned, standing by with a fresh stick, presumably in case the first one broke. “Actually I was talking about what happened before you convinced him to attack the driveway. You know – the part where you put Germolene and a plaster on his knee and kissed it better.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Crowley, reaching for more champagne.

“Obviously. You’re supposed to be the expert on evil.”

“It’s that bloody tricycle,” said Crowley. “I try to make him ride it indoors, but he always wants to go out into the garden.”

“That’s because he wants to see me,” said Aziraphale.

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

“No, he does,” said Aziraphale. “And there’s a great deal of good in the boy. If you ask me, Hell slipped up somewhere. Who would have thought the son of Satan would be so fanatical about Beatrix Potter?”

Crowley arched an eyebrow. “You’ve been reading to him?”

“Yes. He loves Peter Rabbit.”

“Ugh.”

“It’s a children’s classic,” said Aziraphale. “And he likes animals. When he’s a little older we’ll move on to _The Wind In The Willows_.”

“Perfect,” said Crowley. “Petrolhead toads and passive aggressive gay moles. Just the kind of wholesome, sickly English fodder a boy needs to help him grow up on the side of the angels.”

“I have to balance out whatever _you’ve_ been reading to him. What have you been reading to him, anyway?”

“Oh, you know,” said Crowley, turning evasive. “Just a bit of….the old…Kramer and Sprenger.”

Aziraphale stared at her. “_Malleus Maleficarum_?”

“Yeah. In terms of books that have caused untold misery and pain throughout human history, it’s probably up there in the top ten. Can’t hold a candle to the worldwide bestseller that is—”

“—_don’t_—”

“—but I figured you’d have _that_ book covered.” Crowley held up both hands, unrepentant. “Don’t hate the player, angel. Hate the game.”

“And how is Warlock enjoying his bedtime stories?” said Aziraphale, holding out her glass for a refill.

Crowley was still being evasive. A good sign. “He’s…you know…I think he’s taking something on board.”

“So in other words, he’s not?”

“Look, I admit it’s a bit advanced for him…”

Aziraphale laughed and did a small wiggle of victory on the messy, crumb-scattered bed.

“Don’t be smug,” said Crowley.

“I’ll be as smug as I like. It’s not often that lurid fifteenth century demonologies exert less influence over human minds than _The Tale of Mrs Tiggywinkle_. I think that one’s a win for me, actually.”

Crowley changed tack after that. The next time Aziraphale happened to pass by during storytime on the terrace, Crowley was telling Warlock a slightly more conventional story, albeit with her own spin on the material. “Snow White had been living in the forest for many years now, a single woman – living with seven adult men. And nobody seemed to think there was anything sketchy about that. Meanwhile the queen, who was actually not nearly as evil as some people liked to make out, was concerned about her place in the world as a stepmother, because naturally her husband’s heirs from his first marriage were likely to take precedence over—”

“—bo-ring,” said Warlock. It was another new word, and he was already wielding it like a jaded adolescent ten years his senior.

“Good luck,” Aziraphale sang out, passing by with the hedge trimmers.

“Up yours,” said Crowley.

“You only wish, dear,” said Aziraphale, and trotted on her way.

A United States senator and his wife were visiting that week, and Aziraphale spotted the four of them – along with the Dowlings – making their way from the tennis court back to the house. The senator’s wife was extremely glamorous, with a thick mane of shiny blonde hair, long legs and a tiny white tennis skirt that barely covered her heart-shaped bottom. Dowling was taking a great deal of trouble to walk behind her, and Harriet’s disgust was palpable from the other side of the lawn.

Aziraphale wasn’t the only one observing. As she stepped down into the rose garden she came across Godric, the young gardener with the biceps. He was frowning over the hybrid teas at the departing tennis party. “He’s so revolting,” he said. “Look at him, eyeing up that woman’s arse.”

“Never mind arses,” said Aziraphale. “Concentrate on aphids, please. This rose garden is positively crawling.”

“So’s my skin,” said Godric, with a shudder. “Why is he like this? How does he not realise that he’s married to a milf?”

Aziraphale had no idea what that meant, and no inclination to ask. She went off with every intention of weeding the path to the greenhouse, which had been looking rather scruffy lately, only to discover she couldn’t find the long-handled path scraper thingy, and then remembered she’d left it on the terrace.

She went back up. Story time was still in progress, although events had degenerated somewhat. “Once upon a time,” Crowley was saying, through clenched teeth. “There was an angel, who minded his own business and didn’t bother anyone. He was friendly. Open-minded. Liked to listen to opposing points of view, which is how…no, _please_ stop crying now…how he ended getting chucked into a pool of boiling sulphur…”

Warlock cut her off with a piercing scream. It was not one of his tantrum screams, or one of the ones that were simply him making noise because he enjoyed it. This was a blood-curdler, a scream of genuine distress. He held up his hand and Aziraphale saw there was a bee – squirming and doomed as it tried to pull its back half free of the child’s flesh. She reacted before she had time to think. The bee pulled out its stinger with no further effort and flew away, intact and unharmed. Aziraphale passed a hand over the side of Warlock’s wrist and drew the venom from under his skin. He was still crying, more in shock than pain now, and Crowley gathered him into her arms.

“There now,” she said, rocking him gently. “And that, my darling, is why God’s creatures are only fit to be ground under your heel.”

Aziraphale scowled. “Must you?”

“You know I must,” said Crowley.

Harriet came running. She had obviously heard that terrible scream. “Just a bee,” Crowley said. “Scared him because it flew too close to him, but it didn’t sting him.”

“Oh, thank God,” said Harriet, hoisting Warlock onto her hip. “My dad has a bee sting allergy. Do you think these things are hereditary?”

“It couldn’t hurt to test him,” said Crowley. “Although I doubt you have anything to worry about.”

“Thank you, Nanny.” She shushed the boy. “My poor baby. It’s okay. It didn’t get you. You want some ice-cream?”

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Crowley said, as they watched Harriet take Warlock back into the house.

“He was hurt,” said Aziraphale. “And I wanted to hear how your story ended.”

“You know how it ended,” said Crowley, dropping down onto the bench. “The fallen angel crawled out of the pool of boiling sulphur, caused some trouble with an apple, and got heavily into snakeskin footwear. Oh, and then she ended up playing Mary Poppins to the literal fucking Antichrist.”

Aziraphale sat down beside her, and they both gazed out over the green lawn, thistledown drifting in the swoony summer heat. “Doesn’t sound like much of an ending to me, dear,” said Aziraphale. “Aren’t stories supposed to end with a happily ever after?”

Crowley gave her a sidelong look. “What are you on about? You saw _Hamlet_. You loved _Hamlet_. And it’s a big pile of bleeding bodies at the end.” She shook her head. “Happily ever after, says the woman who owns an autographed first edition of _Anna Karenina_.”

“I’m talking about children’s stories.”

“Pfft. Maybe we need to stop lying to kids about happily ever afters.”

“It’s not a lie,” said Aziraphale. “People need to believe in happily ever afters, or at least the possibility of them. People need hope. They need to hope that things will turn out for the best, and that it won’t all end in blood and fire and beasts from the sea and the sky.”

She waited for Crowley to say something cynical, but Crowley didn’t. They didn’t look at each other, either, but sat side by side, watching the light breeze stir the treetops. A sparrow landed on the stone edge of the bird bath, and they watched it dabble and splash. It was nothing more than a tiny ball of feathers, but it had a heart and brain and a vibrating little life all of its own. All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small – Aziraphale loved them, and the world that had formed them.

The side of Crowley’s little finger nudged against her own. She didn’t trust herself to speak as their hands touched and their fingers twined, and they didn’t look at each other, but Aziraphale knew what it meant: Crowley also loved this world enough to try to save it.

Aziraphale pressed her lips tightly closed. She wanted to ask Crowley if she – Aziraphale – was one of the things she loved about this world, but she didn’t dare. She was afraid of the answer, whatever it was. Instead she just kept hold of Crowley’s hand, and they watched the sparrow shake the water from its feathers and take flight once more. Aziraphale thought of mountains and metaphors and an eternity of watching _The Sound Of Music_. And she shivered.

“Is that what we’re doing here, angel?” said Crowley.

“Mm?”

“Keeping hope alive?”

“Yes,” said Aziraphale, and blinked too fast. She swallowed hard. “Yes, I think we are.”

* * *

That night Crowley had the night off, so they took a cab into nearby Arundel and had dinner together at an Italian restaurant opposite the castle. Crowley was in ‘full trollop mode’, as she put it, in a flouncy black organza blouse and a tight leather skirt so much shorter than Nanny’s usual attire that Aziraphale almost had a heart attack when Crowley went to get out of the taxi. There was no way Crowley was wearing knickers. When she took off her jacket her sheer blouse showed no evidence of a bra strap from the back, and she was barely covered from the front by a large, floppy bow that looked as though it was going to spend the evening playing peek-a-boo with her nipples. The fuck-me-shoes were back in force, only this time they were a pair that Aziraphale hadn’t seen before, all velvet straps and lace panels.

“You put me to shame,” said Aziraphale, who was wearing a fitted, cap sleeved dress in a gorgeous white-beige damask fabric that had seemed impossibly glamorous when she’d picked it out in London. Only now she felt somehow both dowdy and overdressed. Crowley looked like she’d tossed everything on without a second thought and still looked achingly cool and sexy. Aziraphale looked as though she’d _tried_.

“You must be joking,” said Crowley, sprawling into the nearest chair and reaching for the wine list. “Have you seen yourself? Your boobs could stop traffic.”

Aziraphale peered anxiously down into her cleavage. “Oh dear. Is it a bit low cut?”

“Nope. If you’ve got it, flaunt it.” Crowley gave her a very demonic leer. She had a dot of dark red lipstick on one sharp white canine, and still somehow managed to make that look sloppy-sexy. “And baby, you’ve got it.” The waiter approached, and Crowley, wine list still in hand, turned towards him like a carnivorous flower.

They sank the first bottle of Montepulciano before they’d even polished off the antipasti. Crowley adored Italian wine, and it always set the memories flowing – of Papal conclaves and rumours of orgies and hangovers made infinitely picturesque by waking up to scenes of spindling cypresses beneath a Tuscan sun. Crowley had romped through the Renaissance. All that human curiosity had set her vibrating like a tuning fork, and not – as Aziraphale sometimes thought in more generous moments – because of the opportunity for mischief it had afforded her. After all, there had been ample opportunities for evil prior to that. While a climate of open-minded curiosity certainly presented _opportunities_ for a demon, it still couldn’t hold a candle to the kind of flat, crushing, and frankly monstrous evils that occurred whenever human minds were in close-minded lockstep with one another. And whenever that had happened, Crowley had been as depressed as anyone else. She wasn’t – although she would never admit it – That Bad.

“Do you ever feel hard done by?” Aziraphale asked, when they had almost finished the second bottle of wine, along with the _cappelletti in brodo_, marsala chicken and piglet leg cooked in a rich lentil and tomato sauce.

“What do you mean?” said Crowley, emptying the wine bottle.

“I heard what you were saying. Your story – about the angel and the pool of boiling sulphur. You still think it was unfair, don’t you?”

Crowley, who had passed on dessert, shamelessly stole a bite of Aziraphale’s tiramisu. “I still think it doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “I’ve thought about this up and down and until my brain was in danger of turning to goo and running out of my earholes, but I still can’t see what’s so wrong with knowing the difference between good and evil. Goodness is a choice, right?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“Right,” said Crowley. “So, essentially, are you _actually_ good?”

“Of course I’m good. I’m an angel.”

“Yeah, but what if you’re not actually good because you’re not _choosing_ to be good?”

Aziraphale reached for her drink. “I think I might have had too much wine for this argument.”

“Or not enough.” Crowley waved to the waiter. “_Un’altra bottiglia di Montepulciano, per favore_.” The bow of her blouse shifted with the movement of her arm, revealing the small breast and saucily exposed nipple beneath. Aziraphale suddenly felt very tired, almost bored of their familiar dance, now that they had learned the steps to a different one. She wanted to take Crowley home, slide between her long, skinny thighs and set about the simpler business of making her come.

“That bee sting,” said Crowley, sitting back in her chair with her own bee stings on lewd display. The wine had left two little upturned marks at the corners of her lips, like a clown’s smile painted on top of her own. She looked infernal, and utterly delicious. “Was that just you acting on your nature, or did you really care?”

“Define care,” said Aziraphale. “I felt bad for him and I wanted to take away his pain. He’s a child, an innocent. Actually he’s a surprisingly pleasant child, for the Antichrist.” She drained her glass. “By the way, do you have any idea when that’s supposed to happen?”

“What?” said Crowley. “He’s supposed to come into his power on his eleventh birthday.”

“Yes, but before then? Is there going to be any kind of preliminary…”

“Antichristing?”

“That’s not a verb, Crowley.”

“It could be,” she said, and beamed at the waiter. “_Mille grazie_.” She always had the loveliest smile for anyone who was giving her alcohol.

“Oh, I know what I was going to ask you,” said Aziraphale, when they were alone again.

“What?”

“What’s a milf?”

Crowley sputtered into her wine. “A what?”

“Someone told me that Harriet Dowling is a milf.”

“Oh, undoubtedly,” said Crowley, apparently determined to be unhelpful.

“Yes? Well, what does it mean?”

“It’s an acronym. Means Mum I’d Like To Fuck.”

Aziraphale frowned. “Then shouldn’t there be a T in there somewhere?”

“No,” said Crowley. “And it doesn’t matter. Who told you that Harriet’s a MILF?”

“Oh, just God.”

“_God?_ I didn’t know you two kept in touch?”

“No,” said Aziraphale, who had definitely had too much wine for this conversation. “God the gardener. His name is Godric, but he likes to be called God.”

“Why? Is he a megalomaniac?”

“I have no idea. It’s none of my business what anyone wants to be called.”

“Yeah, except if they want to be called Anthony,” said Crowley. “Then you do _the face_ and you’re like ‘Anthony? No, I didn't say I didn't like it.’” She shook her head. “Anyway, who gives a shit? Which one is God the Gardener? Is that the one with the…”

“…with the biceps, yes.”

Crowley’s wine-stained mouth flopped open. Her glasses slid down her nose.

“_No_,” said Aziraphale, already guessing what she had in mind. “Don’t you dare.”

“Oh, come on, angel. The hot gardener wants to fuck Harriet? It’s the easiest temptation since David clocked Bathsheba with her loofah. You can’t expect me not to—”

“—I can,” said Aziraphale. “And what’s more, I do. You’re going to have to restrain yourself. Think of the _consequences_, Crowley. Warlock is no ordinary child. He’s the Antichrist. Goodness knows what horrors he might unleash if he finds himself the product of a broken home.”

Crowley snorted. “His home’s already broken. His father penetrates rubber vaginas, his mother’s best friend is vodka and his Nanny is literally a demon from Hell.”

“Then all the more reason why should behave yourself. He needs stability. I know it’s in your nature to tempt, but maybe I’m not as useless as I look at first glance.”

“What do you mean?”

“You need an outlet for your natural tendencies,” said Aziraphale. “So every time you’re tempted to tempt the humans and cause chaos…take it out on me instead. Tempt _me_.”

“Into it,” said Crowley, and licked the wine from her lips. “ And how does that work, by the way?”

“Temptation? Well, you’re the expert on that, my dear.”

“No, not just that,” said Crowley, leaning forward. Her glasses had slid down her nose and Aziraphale could see the gold glitter of her strange, feline eyes. “All of it. All the sex. I mean, we have had quite a lot of it. Do you think of it as evil?”

“No. Not evil…as such…”

“As such?”

“Perhaps not evil,” said Aziraphale. “But it’s definitely naughty. Especially naughty of me.” And wasn’t that the thrill, really? Deep down? “I’m not supposed to do those things.”

“You’re undercover,” said Crowley, and beneath the table her stockinged foot stroked Aziraphale’s calves apart, making her gasp quietly into her wine glass. “Pretending to be human.” Her glasses were on the end of her nose now, the dark slits of her pupils fattening with sexual interest. “Anyway, these things happen,” she said, as her toes ruffled up under Aziraphale’s skirt and started to knead – catlike – against the flesh of one plump inner thigh. “When you’re saving the world.”

“Apparently so,” said Aziraphale, trying to keep a straight face. Crowley’s toes curled against her crotch, massaging gently.

“Mm.” Crowley licked the corner of her lips in thought, frowning slightly as she tried to determine the texture beneath her toes. “So what are we wearing tonight? Silk, satin, or lace? Feels kind of lacy.” Her long, scaly big toe twitched against the inadequate wisp of French knicker, nudging the fabric aside. “No…maybe silk after all,” said Crowley, as if she was trying to guess the vintage of a wine. “Or something even softer…”

“Crowley…” Aziraphale said, but it was a token protest. The restaurant was fairly quiet, and they were in a secluded booth at the back, but they were still in public. And with that came the inevitable fear that any minute Gabriel was going to pop up out of nowhere, all toothy grin and ‘hi, there!’ And that, of all things, should never, ever have been even the slightest bit erotic. And it wasn’t. At least, not in itself, but Aziraphale’s heart raced faster, and her knees decided that they could no longer tolerate one another’s company and decided to separate.

Crowley’s eyes were all honey and hellfire as she worked her toes all the way inside Aziraphale’s underwear. “Definitely softer than silk…” she purred, her slutty red nipples hard beneath her sheer blouse. Her big toe nudged gently at the slit and Aziraphale could already feel herself melting, her centre turning to warm liquid.

“Nothing softer than angel pussy,” Crowley whispered, reaching for her wine as though nothing was happening. “And freshly shaved, if I’m not mistaken.”

Aziraphale stiffened as the waiter passed by, but his presence only drove the dull, thick spike of want ever deeper between her legs. Her knees now seemed to be going through an acrimonious public divorce. Crowley’s toe popped between her parted lips, and she stifled a gasp. Crowley smiled and stroked, her big toe – dexterous as a fingertip – at work on Aziraphale’s clitoris. Aziraphale imagined her outstretched thigh beneath the table, the long muscles working with the motion of her foot.

“One thing I was always curious about,” Crowley said.

“What’s that?”

“Why you shaved your bush. No, I’ll rephrase that.” She grinned and flexed her toes. “I think I know _why_ you shaved it – because it felt good. Am I right?”

Aziraphale nodded, not trusting herself to speak. That rumble and roar of female desire had settled deep between her hips by now. She tightened her inner muscles, felt her clitoris twitch against Crowley’s toe and realised that if she really wanted to, if she let herself, she could come right here.

“What I want to know is when?” Crowley said, her voice low and thrilling. “When did you shave for the first time? After the pool jet incident?”

“I think it was,” said Aziraphale, reaching for her wine and trying to look as though everything was normal. “I did a lot of…exploring…after that.”

“Ha. Knew it. You horny little hedonist.” Crowley peered over her glasses, her gaze full of heat and mischief. “Do you like your new corporation, angel?”

Aziraphale set down the wine glass, not trusting herself to hold it steady. “I love it,” she said, and meant it. She had never felt more beautiful or desirable as she did right now.

“So do I,” said Crowley, pushing with her toe. Aziraphale stifled a whimper. “I love your tits in that dress. And you giving me those bedroom eyes…”

The steady pressure of her toe was becoming unbearable. Her eyes were intent as she watched every shift of Aziraphale’s expression, eager to watch her simmer, froth and boil over, right here in the middle of the restaurant. The waiter passed by again, and the reminder that she shouldn’t be doing this once again did something truly terrible to Aziraphale’s libido. Shouldn’t. That word had rung through her head the whole time, the first time. Shouldn’t, shouldn’t, shouldn’t, even as she was lying naked on the kitchen table, with her breasts and thighs in full shameless jiggle as a demon fucked her witless with a root vegetable.

She wriggled her hips closer on the edge of the seat, driving Crowley’s toes deeper into her. “Oh God,” Crowley said. “You’re drenched. My stockings are going to look like I got caught in the rain.”

“You started it,” said Aziraphale. She found that at this angle she could – hopefully unobtrusively – rock her hips into Crowley’s touch. “And if you don’t stop it…”

“You want me to stop?”

“No!” said Aziraphale, with such vehemence that Crowley laughed. “I’m just saying…” She caught a ragged breath, her head spinning at the idea that she was actually about to do this. In public. There could have been an archangel sitting at the bar, and she wouldn’t have cared. “If you keep doing that I’m going to…mm…”

“…come?” whispered Crowley. Her eyes looked like someone had set fire to the inside of her head. Her toe flexed knowingly and Aziraphale bit her lip hard and nodded.

“I think I’d like to sssee that,” said Crowley, lisping now, as though her tongue were too long for her mouth. Which it was, of course, but never seemed quite long enough whenever it slithered up inside Aziraphale.

“I think you’re about to,” said Aziraphale. The slow building pressure behind her clitoris had almost reached breaking point. She drew in her muscles and the sensation was so delicious that she gasped out loud and threw back her head.

“Shh-hh,” Crowley said, half-laughing. “Steady, love. Don’t Meg Ryan it.”

Aziraphale discreetly covered her hand with her mouth, both thrilled and appalled by the strength of the earthquake rising inside her. She was doing it. She was really doing this – she was coming in the middle of an Italian restaurant, and the thought made her even hotter and madder, until she was coming and coming and thought she might never stop. Crowley’s toe popped inside her and her breath burst out in a harsh, quiet “Fuck,” muffled behind her hand. “Fuck, fuck, _fuck_…” The tension burst in a laugh and she scrambled for her wine glass to cover her embarrassment. Crowley threw back her head and cackled, her toes nudging and teasing.

“Ow, no. Enough.” Aziraphale straightened up in her seat, her cheeks blazing and her mouth dry. She took a long, burning swallow of wine. “Oh dear. I can’t believe I just did that.”

“Neither can I,” said Crowley, taking off her glasses to wipe the tears from her eyes. She looked like could light up the entire room. “I’ll get the bill, shall I?”

“No, please,” said Aziraphale, catching her breath. “Allow me. It’s the least I can do.”

Crowley shook her head and slipped her foot back into her shoe. “Nope,” she said, getting up from the table. She leaned over – skirt perilously short – and gave Aziraphale a long, sloppy kiss on the mouth. “I’ll get the bill, and you can fuck me in the Ladies’ loo while we’re waiting for the taxi. All right?”

“Right,” said Aziraphale, too brain-fried to argue. “Yes, all right.”

“Cool. Meet me there. And don’t be too long, or I’ll start without you.”

Aziraphale finished her wine in a daze, still reeling pleasantly at the thought of what she’d just done. What if one of her lot had been watching? Would they have even understood what they’d just witnessed? Aziraphale – _having an affair_ with the enemy. Oh, it was more than enough to recommend her for a long sabbatical in Hell, but she was beyond caution. She was once again thinking her way up the inside of Crowley’s thigh, smooth as a runway. She planned revenge for this later – to take Crowley apart very, very slowly – but right now all she could think about was making Crowley come. Her imagination had skidded up Crowley’s inner thigh and now her head was full of Crowley’s cunt, full of its salt-musk smell, pink petal lips, and the way the prickle of pubic hair gave way to wet silk beyond. She got up from the table, smoothed down her skirt and headed for the Ladies’.

Crowley was sitting on the edge of the sink, her long legs crossed, revealing a flash of black stocking top and the white thigh above it. She barely had time to get back on her feet before Aziraphale pounced, pinning her against the wall next to the hand dryer. No finesse, just gasping kisses and grabbing hands. Crowley was bare beneath the leather skirt and Aziraphale plunged in with two fingers, her thumb fumbling for Crowley’s long-stemmed clitoris. Crowley moaned into her mouth, snakey hips writhing and wriggling. Even on the inside she was serpentine, the walls of her vagina closely ridged and very stretchy, so that when she opened – the way she was now – she felt like a wet throat trying to swallow something bigger than its whole head. “Please, angel, _please_…” she gasped, her muscles squeezing and suctioning. Aziraphale had three fingers inside now, fucking her furiously up against the tiled wall.

“Wait, did you even lock the door?” said Crowley.

“I don’t know. Did I?”

“Oh fuck,” said Crowley, and started to come, all tight and wet and clutchy. She reached out to steady herself against the wall and accidentally activated the motion-sensitive hand dryer. It roared into idiotic life, covering her crack-throated moan as she finished. Her hips went slack and Aziraphale held her there for a moment, her appetite for revenge satiated, at least for now.

“Public orgasms, drunk sex in toilets,” said Crowley, when they were in bed. She was drowsy, flushed cheek against Aziraphale’s breast, warm, winey breath gusting over her nipple. “I know I don’t say it very often, but I think I should tell you…” She trailed off into a yawn. “Oop. ‘Scuse me.”

“Tell me what?” said Aziraphale, her heart suddenly racing for no reason.

“You,” said Crowley, kissing her nipple. “Are really fucking bad at your job.”

“So are you.” Aziraphale didn’t know if she was devastated or relieved. “Whenever you tell Warlock a story you always take the part of the underdog. The misunderstood. That’s not very evil, in my opinion.”

“It is evil. _I’m_ the underdog: I’m representing myself purely out of self-interest.”

“Whatever you say, dear.”

Crowley’s hand, fingers spread on Aziraphale’s belly, dipped lower. Not to play, just to pet, to trace the line where her flesh parted, a casual touch that spoke of familiarity and made Aziraphale wonder what it would be like if they really, truly belonged to one another. And that was hard somehow, and silly, because of course she loved Crowley. She loved everything, because that was what she was – a being of pure love. Her love for Crowley was transcendent, and should have had nothing to do with playing footsies under the restaurant table, or being able to steal bites off one another’s plates, or feeling pleased when Crowley told her she looked beautiful.

“I had so much fun tonight,” Crowley said, in a half-asleep voice.

“So did I.”

“Will you sleep with me?”

“Of course, darling. If that’s what you want.”

Crowley’s breaths began to slow and space out. Aziraphale didn’t join her in sleep right away. She lay there for a while, holding her and staring up at the ceiling in the dark, unasked questions making her throat ache. _Do you care for me even a little bit? Do I make you happy? Could you see me making you happy forever?_ Worse, she thought she knew the answers to those questions, and yes would be harder than no, because there wasn’t a damn thing they could do about _yes_.

Once she had rambled vaguely about picnics and dinner at the Ritz, but they’d gone beyond that. Far, far beyond that, and now her heart was far too full, and threatening to spill out all over the place. Fat, silent tears oozed from the corners of her eyes and puddled in her ears. She squeezed Crowley tighter, but Crowley was almost asleep now, and stirred, grumbling like a cat that wanted to be left alone to snooze. She unwound herself from Aziraphale and sprawled out on her back, her face turned away, her white throat bared and her breaths settling into soft, boozy snores. Aziraphale kissed her bare shoulder and turned back to stare up at the slope of the ceiling.

“Do you care?” she asked, silently addressing the voice that hadn’t answered back in over six thousand years. “Did I really do anything that evil? It doesn’t _feel_ evil, and if it gives her even a little of what you took away from her…” She swallowed hard, trying to dissolve the aching knot in her throat. “But there. I’ve said too much. Forgive me, Lord. It’s just my nature. I am as you made me, and it’s only love. Only a little bit of love.”


	5. Goat Wars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay with this chapter, and thank you all so much for your patience and encouragement. You're good people. <3

The sun was rising and soon it would be time to go, but Crowley lingered on past dawn sometimes, just to watch Aziraphale sleep.

She lay sprawled on her back, head turned to one side, her big boobs and softly rounded belly rising and falling in time with her quiet snores. Crowley ran a hand over her hip, but Aziraphale didn’t stir. Her eyelashes only trembled and her lids remained closed, although with angels you could never be sure how many eyes they really had. Especially after last night, when things had gotten a bit out of control. Not that they’d ever been _in_ control when it came to fucking, but last night Crowley had a feeling she’d seen something she shouldn’t. She’d been deep inside, deep enough to touch the snub-nosed tip of the angel’s purely decorative womb, her mouth fastened on Aziraphale’s clit. She knew the taste intimately by now, brackish and clean, with a background bouquet of something soft and peachy. And she also knew how sometimes – when her being of love was roused to really heart-thumping levels of pleasure – Aziraphale would taste different. Less human, and a lot more angel.

That’s what had happened last night. Aziraphale had been coming, hard and slow, her walls shaking and her wide open thighs trembling, and then Crowley could taste stars.

And Crowley knew what stars tasted like. Aziraphale may have been the one attuned to the music of the spheres, but despite thousands of years Crowley still remembered the way stardust lingered on the tongue, long after you’d finished putting the final touches to a nebula. She remembered the gunpowder tang of regolith, the hot metallic smell of vacuum and the acridity of ozone, a scent that – even now – sent her mind flying back in time whenever there was a thunderstorm, or whenever Aziraphale came so hard that she forgot how to be human.

Only last night Crowley had done a lot more than taste the stars. She’d seen them. Somehow in the middle of it all, with her mouth full of angel and her fingers deep inside, she had glimpsed the edge of Aziraphale’s essence. Just a peek – nothing more – but enough to sense the starry, unblinking vastness of the angel’s true form, and to see too many eyes gazing into her, with an understanding so intense that if Crowley had been human her mind would probably have immediately snapped. Afterwards she had lain there in the dark, anxious and unable to shake the notion that when Aziraphale’s human body climaxed, in some other dimension – not quite parallel and not exactly adjacent – her true form was simultaneously singing loud and sweet enough for the other angels to overhear. And for them to prick up their metaphysical ears and perhaps wonder what was going on with her.

Aziraphale stopped snoring. She moaned sleepily and her hand came down to cover Crowley’s, still resting on her hip. Her eyes remained closed, but she smiled and pulled Crowley’s hand to her pussy.

“I have to go,” said Crowley.

Aziraphale opened her eyes. She was ripe and rosy in the pale morning light, and it was getting so, so hard not to say ‘I love you.’ “Must you?” she said.

Crowley leaned over and kissed her. She kissed her mouth, her forehead, and the tip of the nearest big pink tit, then gathered up the other in an overflowing handful and kissed that nipple, too. In case it got jealous. “You know I must,” she said, getting up before the temptation to linger became too much. “Got a job to do. Saving the world and all that.”

“Oh. That.” Aziraphale swallowed a yawn and stretched. “It’s not what I thought it would be, you know.”

“What’s that?” said Crowley, retrieving her stockings from the bedroom floor.

“Saving the world. I thought there’d be more obvious satanic influences swirling about the place.”

“What do you mean? _I’m_ an obvious satanic influence.”

“Yes, I know,” said Aziraphale. “But you don’t really swirl as such, do you? You more sort of…wriggle. And sometimes you moan.”

“Well, I will do,” said Crowley. “If you keep sticking your tongue up my snatch.”

Aziraphale sat up, her long blonde curls – grown out at Crowley’s request – tumbling over her bare shoulders. “Snatch,” she said, with an expression of distaste. “Really, my dear?”

“What? At least it’s not quim. That’s so nineteenth century. Of course _you’d_ call it a quim.”

“I’m perfectly at home with cunt. You know that.”

Crowley laughed and wriggled into her skirt. “Oh, I know.”

“Not so much with pussy, but I’m fine with cunt. If it was good enough for the likes of D.H. Lawrence and Geoffrey Chaucer then it’s good enough for me.”

“Did we ever discuss foofy?” said Crowley. By the look on Aziraphale’s face, they weren’t going to. “Or minge? Or what about really old school romance novel shit? ‘The delicate flower of her femininity.’ Her _womanhood_.”

Aziraphale visibly curdled. “I think I actually prefer snatch,” she said.

“Or ladygarden. How do you feel about ladygarden?”

“Ladygarden? No.” She sputtered and pulled the covers up over her breasts. “That isn’t real. You just made that up.”

“I didn’t,” said Crowley. She passed the dormer window that looked out over the lawn, and stopped. Aziraphale had had a point about not many satanic influences swirling around the place after all. Warlock was scared of large dogs, he had a distinct lack of spooky birthmarks, and the only time a smell of sulphur attended him was when he’d overdone it on the egg mayonnaise sandwiches. But this? This was a bit more fucking like it. “Is that a goat?”

Aziraphale, partially wrapped in the candlewick bedspread, sprung out of bed. “_Shit,_” she said, and immediately started running around looking for some clothes. “Shit, shit, shit. I don’t bloody _believe_ this.”

“What? It’s a goat,” said Crowley, because it was. Not only that, it was a proper goat, the kind of goat that should be hanging around the Antichrist. It was a big, black, Baphomet-looking thing, with curving horns and a pointed beard. Crowley was very pleased to see it, not least because one of the things that had been keeping her awake at night lately – besides Aziraphale’s snoring – was the lurking suspicion that maybe _something_ had gone wrong. There had been a baby – the original Dowling baby – and then there had been the other one. Oh, and then there had been that flustered English bloke with the pipe, but perhaps he’d been something to do with the Ambassador’s entourage. And he probably was, because there was clearly nothing to worry about here. That was a properly satanic goat out there.

The goat startled in mid graze. Crowley had been so lost in her own anxious thoughts that she’d only vaguely registered the sound of Aziraphale’s footsteps on the stairs. Aziraphale burst out from the cover of the trees and ran towards the goat, shouting. She had traded in her flaming sword for Harriet Dowling’s broken tennis racquet, and was hastily dressed in a broiderie anglaise nightie tucked clumsily into the waistband of her pale tweed gardening trews. “Shoo!” she yelled, flailing at the animal. “Bugger off! I won’t tell you again!”

Crowley fastened up her blouse and followed Aziraphale out onto the lawn. Aziraphale, tennis racquet in hand, stood glowering as the goat beat a hasty retreat. “That bloody goat,” she said, folding an arm over her breasts. “_Ow_. I didn’t even have time to put on a bra.”

“Has that goat been here before?” said Crowley.

“Of course. It belongs to that farmer nextdoor. Keeps getting through the fence and eating _everything_ that isn’t on fire or nailed down.”

“Oh,” said Crowley, her fresh certainty evaporating like morning fog. “Don’t suppose it’s…swirling, is it? Satanically?”

Aziraphale, red faced and dishevelled, frowned. “Not as far as I know,” she said. “It’s pooing. I can tell you that much. It craps with impunity all over my bloody lawn.”

“What happened to all of God’s beautiful creation?” said Crowley. “All creatures great and small?”

“A charming sentiment,” Aziraphale said. “Just not one that springs to mind when you’re staring at the back of a defecating goat. Ambassador Dowling is going to be furious if he finds out that thing invaded us again. He’s been talking about putting up an electric fence.”

“Well, good luck with that,” said Crowley, stealing a kiss. “Gotta go. The Antichrist will be awake any minute, and he won’t eat his dippy egg and soldiers if I don’t draw a face on the egg for him.”

“All right, darling. Have a good day.”

It was early autumn and the house was wreathed in a soft mist. The mist, Crowley thought, was not wholly appropriate. Great banks of boiling, swirling fog, like something described at great length by a Victorian penny dreadful writer who was getting paid by the word – that was what should have been swirling around the house where the Antichrist lived, not this salubrious Keatsian fuckery. The timbered gables of the house resolutely refused to loom, and the numerous leaded windows – far from gazing from the surrounding brickwork like the vacant, haunted eyes of a character from Poe – twinkled like the avuncular eyes of a department store Santa. It really wasn’t good enough. The place didn’t even have the decency to be haunted. When Crowley had first arrived she had heard weird midnight moanings, and glimpsed white clad figures flickering across darkened hallways, but it had just turned out to be the housemaids, keeping horny late night trysts with the handsome secret service guys.

_ Something_ satanic should have been happening by this point. Something a bit more significant than just a goat.

Crowley went up to the nursery, where Warlock was sleeping sweetly under his dinosaur patterned duvet. He’d been drawing again, and not on the walls this time. She would have to have words with him about that. Crowley gathered up the crayon scribbles and searched in vain for pictures of people being impaled on spikes, or Warlock’s birth father emerging from a refreshing dip in a pool of boiling sulphur. But there was nothing. The most satanic picture of the lot was of a stick figure with dark glasses and thick strokes of red crayon perched like a gable hood on top of her perfectly circular head. It was still one of the more flattering portraits Crowley had seen over the centuries, having seen herself misrepresented in countless demonologies.

“I mean, honestly,” she muttered. “Anyone with eyes could tell I don’t have a _tail_.”

Warlock grumbled a bit about getting up. As usual, he had no interest in brushing his teeth, but Crowley wasn’t having it. “Dental hygiene is extremely important,” she said. “You can’t rip the throats out of the damned if your teeth are falling out of your head, can you?”

“What’s damned?” said Warlock.

“I am,” said Crowley. “And so are you, but it’s not so bad once you get used to it. Come along now. Your eggs will be getting cold.”

They went down to the dining room. Warlock sat up at the table now, although his feet were a long way from touching the floor. Crowley took out an edible marker pen and lovingly drew little screaming, crying faces on the soft boiled eggs, then set them in their cups and presented them before the Adversary. He gleefully smashed their heads open with the back of a spoon, and Crowley breathed a bit easier and stopped imagining ways that she could – feasibly, but not very likely, and _surely_ they would have known by now – cocked up the baby swap.

Harriet Dowling wandered in, searching for coffee. “Oh God,” she said, glancing out of the window. “Is that goat back?”

Crowley looked. It was. The goat had evidently doubled back on itself, and so had Aziraphale. She stood with her arms outstretched, trying to head the animal off, and then the goat seemed to think better of it, turned around and started trotting in the opposite direction. “No, no, no – not the herb garden!” said Aziraphale, and gave chase, jiggling mightily.

“Is she wearing a bra?” said Harriet.

“I don’t think she had time to put one on,” said Crowley.

“Ouch.”

“Bra,” said Warlock. “Mommy, you said _bra_.”

Harriet rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Yes, honey.”

“You know what goes in bras? Boobies.”

“Could we _not_, maybe? Just this morning? Just the once?”

Crowley reached for her glasses. Usually all she had to do was threaten to remove them and Warlock would sit very, very still and quiet, like a mouse transfixed by a snake. But not this morning.

“Boooooooobies!” Warlock bellowed, as his father entered the room.

“Do you want to start eating in the kitchen again, Warlock?” said Crowley. “Because that’s what will happen if you don’t sit up at the table like a big boy…”

“Oh, don’t mind him, Nanny,” said Dowling, joining his wife at the window. Warlock leapt down from the table and wrapped his arms around his father’s knees. “It’s just high spirits.” He frowned. “Is she wearing a…?”

“No,” said Harriet, as Aziraphale bounced past the window at a full sprint.

Dowling blinked. “Wow,” he said, glancing at Crowley. “Congrats, I guess. You still hitting that?”

“You could say that,” said Crowley.

“Do you say that? Hit that? Or is that too much like fisting? I don’t…”

Harriet’s mouth fell open. “_How?_” she said, staring at her husband. “_How_ are you a diplomat?”

The goat reappeared, running quite fast in pursuit of Aziraphale, who had surely had enough by now. And so had Dowling.

“Is that fucking goat back?” he said, before Crowley had time to cover Warlock’s ears.

“Oh, wonderful Thad. Just teach him the f-bomb before he’s even five!”

“There is a goddamn _goat_, Harriet! That does it. I’m calling that guy about the fence!”

Crowley reached for Warlock’s hand, to take him out of the room and out of the way. Screaming parents definitely fell under the category of bad influences, but there were some things that even the son of Satan didn’t need to put up with. When all was said and done, he was still a child.

Warlock shook his head and clung to Dowling’s trousers like a barnacle. He was going through a Daddy phase lately.

“No! We are not having an electric fence!” Harriet was saying. “It’s dangerous!”

“Yes, to goats,” said Dowling. “I’m gonna give that goddamn farmer a piece of my mind.” He attempted to stride purposefully out of the room, which was no small feat when you had a four year old clinging to your trouser leg.

“Warlock, sit down and finish your breakfast,” said Crowley, but Warlock shook his head again.

“It’s fine,” said Dowling. “He can come with me.”

“Great,” Harriet yelled after him. “Just undermine Nanny while you’re at it, why don’t you, Thad?” She rubbed her forehead and looked very much like she would appreciate a Bloody Mary for breakfast. “Oh my God, why are men like this? I keep thinking I want a baby, but what if it’s another boy? What if it’s twins? Boy twins? Then there’d be four of them, all peeing on the bathroom floor and talking about golf.” She leaned her head against the window frame.

Aziraphale and the goat had vanished from view, but now God the gardener was wandering around with a rake and a big plastic bag. It was a warm morning and he’d already tied his jumper around his waist. The sleeves of his navy blue t-shirt were tight over his tanned biceps, and the way Harriet looked at him awakened something ancient and slithery inside Crowley.

No, Crowley told herself, and resolved to take it out on Aziraphale later. She hurried over to the table and began gathering up the remnants of Warlock’s breakfast, but it was already too late. She was in her element - a man, a woman, a garden, and one of the big ten Thou Shalt Nots. The as-yet-unborn sin filled the room like smoke. Crowley, her back to Harriet, snaked out her sensitive tongue and tasted it, a heavy, heady, charged scent, like the air before a thunderstorm. Crowley’s senses bristled and groaned. Her spine squirmed as though trying to escape her body and her black, demon heart thrummed ever harder in her throat and between her legs.

“I should get a hobby,” Harriet was saying. “Maybe I’ll take up baking. Or freebasing cocaine. That’s supposed to be fun, right?”

“Oh, I’m sure there are nice men in the world somewhere,” said Crowley.

Harriet snorted. “You can afford to be generous, Nanny. _You_ don’t have to put up with them.”

Crowley turned back to the window. She couldn’t take it any more. She could feel the direction of Harriet’s gaze dragging at her like a tractor beam. Outside, the gardener flexed and rippled, and Harriet devoured him with her eyes. “I daresay heterosexuality has its allure,” said Crowley. “At times.”

Harriet gave a nervous laugh. “Stop it.”

“Do you know he said you were a milf?”

Her mouth fell open, but it was a weak sort of outrage. “That’s…”

“Tantamount to sexual harassment, really,” said Crowley, aware that she’d perhaps already gone too far. But that was the trouble with temptation – whether you were giving or taking, even the tiniest little taste was enough to make you greedy for more.

“I…” Harriet opened and closed her mouth a couple of times. She flipped her shiny brown hair over her shoulder and shifted on her heels. “I don’t think I’d go _that_ far.”

“Perhaps not,” purred Crowley, slinking closer. “Still. It’s _very_ inappropriate.”

“Oh, absolutely,” said Harriet, not taking her eyes off God. Poor woman was desperate, almost as desperate as Crowley, whose demon instincts were now tearing off all their clothes and screaming.

“You should fire him,” Crowley whispered, watching the lean muscles move in the young man’s back.

“Mm.” Harriet trembled, like a piano wire in Temperley.

“You _should_,” said Crowley, her fingers settling on the human woman’s shoulders. The tension, the glorious, illicit _want_ poured into her.

“I should,” said Harriet, like she was reciting a lesson that she had learned so many times that it no longer made sense to her.

“Or at least,” said Crowley, massaging gently. “Give him a long, hard…talking to.”

“Right. Yes. Words.”

“Yessss,” said Crowley. “You should have…words with him.”

Harriet made a small, squeaking noise in the back of her throat.

“Discipline is so important,” Crowley said, now firmly sunk in her role as Ashtoreth. “A household without discipline is like a creaking, rusty piece of machinery, but a household _with_ discipline runs smoothly. Well-lubricated. Efficient as the giant, pounding pistons on an ocean liner.”

Harriet let out a shaking breath. “You’re quite right, Nanny,” she said. “I’m gonna…yep…”

“Off you go, dear,” said Crowley. “Put him in his place.”

* * *

The kitchen smelled sweet and warm. Aziraphale, her hair piled on top of her head like a Gibson girl, was stirring something on the top of the stove. “Good day?” she said, but Crowley wasn’t in the mood for small talk. She’d let her guard down this morning, and now – like prisoners who had glimpsed their freedom – all of her most infernal instincts had set fire to their mattresses, broken out of their cells and gone all Strangeways on her. Aziraphale was good, and right now her goodness was like catnip to Crowley’s snarling, demonic id. Crowley’s demon instincts didn’t recognise logic or experience, both of which said that Aziraphale – being Aziraphale and all – didn’t actually need much corrupting to do things that angels shouldn’t. All Crowley’s demon instincts knew was that they were in the presence of good, and that their job was to corrupt, to soil and despoil, and to get that fluffy little angel nice and _dirty_. To pull her hair, to whip down her trousers and spank her bare, round bum until her upturned cheeks glowed, and the fat, pouting pink lips gleamed wet between her open thighs.

Crowley slunk closer, sizing up her target. Aziraphale was in beige trousers and a lace trimmed blouse, a frilly apron tied over the top. The wide tartan ribbon of the apron cinched her waist and turned her well-filled hourglass figure into something that could very well stop time, not to mention traffic. She was chattering on about the jam she was attempting to make, but Crowley wasn’t listening, too absorbed by how the light caught the trailing stray blonde hairs at the nape of Aziraphale’s bared neck. Crowley could make out the pale ghost of bra straps beneath Aziraphale’s cream blouse, and that, too, was part of the whole irresistible package. You never knew what you were going to get when you unwrapped Aziraphale. The angel loved her pretty underwear – lace cup bras and matching knickers, or that cream satin teddy that left her sumptuous breasts free to jostle and jiggle, the nipples hard beneath the shiny fabric. Then there had been that time she’d opened the door in a coffee-cream basque, and Crowley had plunged facedown into her cleavage before she’d even had time to close the front door.

“You’re circling me again,” said Aziraphale. “Why do you that?”

Crowley said nothing, just prowled on round to the rear. She ran a hand over Aziraphale’s bottom and tried to guess what was under the trousers. Something soft, or something high cut and lacy?

“Weave a circle round him thrice,” said Aziraphale, stirring her pot. “And close your eyes in holy dread, for he on honeydew hath fed and—”

“—fuck me,” said Crowley, who was in no mood for Samuel Taylor Coleridge. She bit the edge of Aziraphale’s ear.

“What? Now? Crowley, be careful. This sugar is extremely hot.”

“So am I,” said Crowley, stepping out of her skirt. “Also wet. Very wet.”

Aziraphale turned and saw Crowley was standing there bottomless. She put down her wooden spoon and looked up, her big blue eyes soft yet calculating. She licked a spot of sticky sweetness from the corner of her mouth and reached between Crowley’s bare thighs, her hand only cupping and cradling for now. With a muted click of high heels, Crowley shifted her feet another inch or two apart, and Aziraphale – still gazing up into her eyes – took the hint and pushed with a single finger. “Oh,” she said, with the merest lift of her eyebrows. “Yes. Yes, you are.”

She was barefoot, and with Crowley in heels almost a full foot shorter. She had to tiptoe up to kiss Crowley, and as she did so she pushed higher inside her. Two fingers now, their touch so long awaited that Crowley moaned out loud. Aziraphale didn’t take her eyes off her, her tongue still worrying the corner of her mouth as she began to fuck Crowley where she stood. She reached for the buttons of Crowley’s black silk blouse, but found she couldn’t do it one handed. “Show me your breasts, darling,” she whispered, her fingers stretching and curling inside Crowley, but her thumb held back from Crowley’s clit, teasing. Crowley slipped off her blouse and stood there in her stockings. Her pin heels suddenly felt like inadequate support and she wanted to stagger backwards and spread her legs, but at the same time she thought she’d die if Aziraphale stopped touching her.

Aziraphale kissed her nipples and slipped her fingers out. She licked them deliberately and then took Crowley by the hand. “Come along, then,” she said, and led her into the living room. “No, leave your shoes on, dear. Your legs are so beautiful.”

Light headed with lust, Crowley perched on the edge of the chaise longue, while Aziraphale stepped out of her trousers – the apron still in place – and knelt. The first touch of Aziraphale’s mouth was like rain in a drought. Crowley had been waiting for this all day. First her tongue, then her fingers – one, two, three, maybe even four. Crowley cried out and spread her thighs even wider, wanting more. Aziraphale had pretty little hands, soft and small enough slip all the way inside. The first time it had happened had taken them both by surprise, startling Crowley into a wild, sudden orgasm and leaving Aziraphale wide-eyed for days, especially whenever Crowley sat down more carefully than usual. But it wasn’t going to happen today – Crowley was far too impatient for that, and Aziraphale wanted to _eat_. She slid out her fingers and went nose deep, moaning in the back of her throat as her tongue pushed inside Crowley. Her other hand was already at work beneath the apron, her blonde hair falling out of its untidy topknot and sticking to her wet, flushed cheek.

Crowley gathered up a handful of Aziraphale’s hair and tugged gently. “You love it,” she whispered, rocking her hips into the angel’s greedy mouth. “Don’t you? You love this, you little glutton.”

Aziraphale moaned into her. Crowley saw the angle of her shoulder shift as she pushed her hand deeper between her own legs, and Crowley echoed her moan, on fire at the thought of those lucky, lucky angel fingers exploring Aziraphale’s plush pink box. Her thighs were spread so wide that her hips were beginning to ache, but Aziraphale’s tongue went on lashing and licking, her deep, soft moans growing louder as she went to town on herself. “Oh God.” Crowley pushed her hair back again so that she could see, and Aziraphale glanced up, eyes so drugged and dazed that it was all she needed. “Oh fuck. Eat me, fuck me, I’m coming.”

Gasping, Crowley subsided onto the fainting couch. Aziraphale wiped her face on the inside of Crowley’s thigh, scrambled to her feet and wriggled out of the apron. “Please,” she said, and swung a leg over Crowley. Her lips were plump and dewy, the inside slick and soft as she sank down on Crowley’s fingers, fucking herself even as she fumbled her way out of her blouse. She tore off the blouse and made an attempt to unfasten her bra, hips in constant motion, her tight, silky cunt already quivering in a way that Crowley knew meant she was close. “Come on, gorgeous,” Crowley said. Aziraphale gave up on the bra with a thin whine of frustration, and reached between her thighs to finish herself off. She came like that, riding Crowley’s fingers with her hips and thighs, her own fingers at work on her clit, and her head thrown so far back that her boobs almost escaped her bra on their own.

She slumped forward on her knees, her pussy still twitching. Crowley reached behind her and opened the catch of her bra with ease. “Wahey, they’re free,” Crowley crooned into Aziraphale’s ear. “The angel tits are out.”

Aziraphale extricated herself from the bra, tossed it across the room and fell forward again, her breasts tumbling forward into Crowley’s waiting mouth. “Every time,” she said, sighing at the touch of Crowley’s hands and tongue. “Every time I think it can’t get any better. But it does. Oh darling, it does.” She lowered her head. Her tongue tasted of sex and sweetness, and her tumbling hair smelled like burnt sugar and cordite. Explosive. Celestial. Was this what it smelled like, when you made love to an angel? “Do you think maybe that we might be quite good at sex?”

“Are you mad?” said Crowley. “We’re brilliant at sex.”

“Do you think so?”

“Absolutely. Amazing. Best in the world. Possibly the universe.”

Aziraphale smiled. No, grinned. The big grin. The one that showed off all her perfect pearly teeth and made her tip-tilted nose crease. “You are just scrumptious,” she said, and bent her head for more kisses. Crowley held her for a long moment, wondering how easy it would be to hold her here for much longer, to grab her hair and whisper in her ear, “I know you love me. I know you love me as much as I love you.”

But she didn’t. Instead she just lay there, with Aziraphale’s tits and tumbling curls falling into her face. The burnt smell was stronger now, and Crowley took hold of a handful of hair and sniffed. No, that wasn’t it. “What’s that smell?” she said.

Aziraphale sniffed. “Oh,” she said, swallowing a yawn. “Ruined jam, I think.”

“Why are you making jam?”

Aziraphale rocked back on her heels, and almost fell off the chaise longue. “I thought I should have a hobby,” she said, getting up. “Other than sex and drinking, that is. The amount of recycling we get through is shocking, Crowley. I’m sure everyone thinks I’m a complete dipsomaniac.”

“You are,” said Crowley, sitting up. “You’re the only being I’ve ever met who can drink me under the table. Speaking of, is there any gin?”

Aziraphale rolled her eyes. She had the unusual gift of managing to look censorious while stark naked, which Crowley suspected was probably an angel thing. “You’re not helping,” she said.

“Wasn’t trying to,” said Crowley.

“I’m going to make a nice cup of tea instead. Would you like one?”

“Oh, go on then. Just make sure you put some whiskey in it.”

Rather than put any clothes on, Aziraphale simply twitched down the kitchen blind and put the kettle on. It was strange how quickly she’d become so comfortable in a female body, after centuries of resisting changing her corporation. The most dramatic change she’d ever made was growing a pair of sideburns in the nineteenth century, perhaps to better fit in at that ‘exclusive gentlemen’s club’ in Portland Place. And there was another puzzle – how eagerly she’d taken to banging the bejesus out of Crowley. Aziraphale had always insisted that she was sexless, but Crowley had always suspected differently, especially in the light of said gentleman’s club. She’d always had a suspicion that Aziraphale was strictly dickly, so it had been a surprise to find that she was also exceptionally good at lesbianism. It had clicked for Crowley in the strangest way, when one day Aziraphale had been humming around the rose garden and regaling the teacup climbers with snatches of _West Side Story_. When you heard a being like Aziraphale announce in song that she felt pretty and witty and gay, you tended to believe it. Especially the gay part. It seemed that no matter what her presentation or corporation, her essence remained the same – gay as a rainbow flag and camper than a row of pink tents.

Crowley stirred from the sofa, and reached for the black kimono that hung on the door of the boiler cupboard. It had been weird at first, having some of her things at Aziraphale’s place, but it was a nice kind of weird. “So what’s with the jam?” she said. “Are you trying to join the local WI?”

“I’m just trying to make myself useful,” said Aziraphale.

“Nudey calendars,” said Crowley.

“Pardon?”

“Nudey calendars. They do that these days, the Women’s Institute. It’s not all jam and _Jerusalem_ these days. They’re all getting their lils out for nude calendars. You should definitely do that, although they’d all have to go home after your holy jiggly bits stole the show.”

Aziraphale frowned and reached behind the downstairs cloakroom door for something to put on. She needn’t have bothered. The thing she selected was a lace trimmed wisp of nothing that probably only answered to French names like negligee, peignoir or déshabillé. Aziraphale’s French was one of the many reasons that humans assumed that she – who had no nationality by nature – was as English as tuppence, but at least she was fluent in Lingerie.

“Crowley, what are you talking about?” she said, fastening the filmy sash around her waist.

“No idea. I’m just making random noises, really. You know how I am when you’ve fucked my brains out.”

“You sort of insisted,” said Aziraphale, reaching for the teapot. “What’s got you so hot and bothered?”

Crowley hesitated. “Right. That.”

“Crowley…”

“I have to tell you something.”

“Oh God,” said Aziraphale.

“I might have done a _little_ bit of tempting.”

Aziraphale sighed. “Oh no. What did you do?”

“I can’t help it! I’m a demon. I’ve been holding it in for years, angel. It’s like…like a giggle in church. It has to come out sooner or later, and if it doesn’t it just…builds.”

“You were supposed to tempt _me_, you absolute nitwit,” said Aziraphale, which was a laugh. If anyone was tempting around here it was her, in that frilly nothing outfit that merely decorated her curves rather than concealed them. “I thought we’d discussed this.”

“I know. I’m sorry. It just sort of…happened. Harriet was looking out of the window and your beefcake gardener was right there.”

“My what?”

“God. Godric. You know. The one with the biceps and the smile. How was I supposed to help myself? It was the lowest hanging fruit since…”

Aziraphale rolled her eyes. “The other time with the low hanging fruit?”

“Exactly,” said Crowley.

“You are the worst.”

“Um, demon? Serpent of Eden, remember?” Crowley wriggled. “I couldn’t help it. Got me all twitchy in the demon parts. I’ve been a horny mess for most of the day. Even tried sitting on the washing machine.”

“Really?” said Aziraphale. Trust Little Miss Oops-I-Sat-On-A-Pool-Jet to be curious about a new way to masturbate. “And how was that?”

“Underwhelming,” said Crowley. “Although most things are when you’ve been eaten out by a literal angel with a mouthful of whiskey.”

Aziraphale added a generous slug of Scotch to Crowley’s tea and handed her the cup. “Well, try not to do it again, dear.”

“What? Sitting on the washing machine?”

“No. Tempting the humans. We can’t afford to mess this up, Crowley.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Maybe _I_ should do something,” said Aziraphale, picking up her well-laced tea and wandering into the living room.

“What do you mean?”

"Something to cancel you out. Equal and opposite.”

“What are you going to do?” said Crowley. “Celestial marriage counselling?”

“I don’t know,” said Aziraphale. “But if you got to do a temptation then _I_ should get to do something.” She twisted her neck and shoulders in that way that Crowley knew meant that her wings were bothering her.

Crowley set down her tea and beckoned Aziraphale over to the couch. “Come on.”

“No, you really don’t have to…”

“…I _want_ to. Come here.”

Aziraphale came over and knelt at Crowley’s feet, facing outwards. Crowley brushed the lacy little nothing from her shoulders and sank her fingers into the muscles of Aziraphale’s shoulders, seeking the space where the visible joined the invisible. Her fingers found the places where flesh met feather, and Aziraphale moaned and rolled her neck. It cracked, and reality shivered. The wings were transparent at first, their shape nothing more than a pale shadow, but as Crowley kneaded her fingers into the muscles the wings appeared, swan white and smelling of stardust.

“Poor angel,” said Crowley. “Do you need to spread your wings?”

“You know I do. I healed a beesting, Crowley. And a bee. That’s about the only outlet I’ve really had. It’s hard, you know? Sometimes I just want to…I don’t know.”

“Stroll across the swimming pool? Make the roses bloom in December? Yeah, I know. We’re a lot more alike than you’ll admit.”

Aziraphale pulled up her hair and sighed happily. “Oh, you have wonderful hands.”

“You’re very tense.”

“I know. I’m all pent-up. It’s not just the big miracles. It’s not being able to do the _little_ things one takes for granted, you know? Like not being able to levitate a book when I’m reading in the bath. The pages get all damp at the corners. It’s simply awful. I had to learn to lift with my back instead of my knees, because I’m not allowed to move solid objects with my mind. I had to learn how to order pizza. Have you ever ordered a pizza, darling?”

“All the time,” said Crowley, who had ordered countless pizzas, almost always to other people.

“Well, it all adds up,” said Aziraphale. “All those little everyday things I took for granted. And now look at me. I’m…I’m a roiling cauldron of unsatisfied supernatural desires.”

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe you _should_ do something. An equivalent miracle to balance out my temptation.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking.”

“Nothing too flashy,” said Crowley. “Anything too big and you run the risk of alerting upstairs. No burning bushes or manna from heaven, okay? You can’t cover the lawn with cupcakes and give the goat diabetes.”

Aziraphale laughed and leaned back into the touch of Crowley’s hands. She held her wings at a lower angle now, the tips of the outermost white feathers brushing the rug. The muscles beneath Crowley’s fingers felt looser. Aziraphale yawned. “You know, it’s funny,” she said, after a while. “I’ve been wanting to do something miraculous for the longest time, but now that I’m granted the opportunity, I can’t seem to think of anything.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that, angel,” said Crowley. “I’m sure in a world this wicked you’ll find your chance to right some wrong.”

“Perhaps, dear.”

“You will,” said Crowley, and kissed her bare shoulder. “I have faith in that much, at least.”

* * *

The honeymoon was over.

It was bound to happen, Crowley knew, because she and Warlock had always got along so well up until now. All the same, it was a sad day when he told her he didn’t need her to draw faces on his eggs anymore. “I’m not a _baby_,” he said, and he wasn’t. He was closer to five than four, and Crowley could hardly believe it. Even the humans remarked that he was growing like a weed, although in her darker moments Crowley sometimes imagined him as an hourglass, or a complicatedly wired bomb whose red digital display was ticking ever closer to Armageddon. In her very darkest moments – on those days when Warlock had been unrelentingly and worryingly ordinary – she lay awake at night trying to recall every moment of the night he was born, and sometimes the tension in her body was enough to vibrate through the mattress and wake Aziraphale.

She hadn’t told Aziraphale about those thoughts. They were probably nothing to worry about. “After all,” as Aziraphale often said, “We _want_ him to be normal. That’s the whole point of the exercise.”

However, Crowley soon realised that the Antichrist was about to get another new influence in his life. Harriet stopped smelling of vodka but continued to vomit in the mornings, especially if someone entered the room with a cup of coffee. “Oh shit,” she said, after fleeing the smell of her husband’s espresso. “I’m pregnant.”

“Are you sure?” said Crowley, holding a waste paper basket in case the dry heaves turned wet again.

Harriet nodded convulsively. “I’ve only missed one period,” she said. “But my boobs are like rocks and I puke at the tiniest whiff of coffee. There was coffee icing on a cupcake the other day, and that was still enough to set me off.” She gagged and shuddered at the memory. “I was _exactly_ the same with Warlock. Peeing on a stick is a formality at this point.”

Crowley had never considered the possibility of a sibling before. “Have you told…him?” she said. The boy was the Antichrist. If he took after his father he was not going to take kindly to the idea of no longer being the centre of attention.

Harriet gave her a strange look, as though she guessed there was something irregular about her child. “Let me worry about that later,” she said.

Crowley didn’t understand the look at first, but Aziraphale spelled it out for her later, when they were in bed. “This is what comes of giving into your demon instincts,” she said, working away at the interminable beige thing she had begun knitting in the late autumn. “Dowling is going to end up raising yet another child that isn’t his.”

“It’s not that big a deal,” said Crowley. “He doesn’t really pay much attention to the one he already has.”

Aziraphale tutted over a dropped stitch. The thing was more dropped stitches than otherwise, but she would have her hobbies. “What did we say about broken homes?”

Crowley slid a hand up Aziraphale’s bare thigh, making her giggle. “Are you really going to judge Harriet for fucking the gardener?” she said. “Are you going to judge _me_ for fucking the gardener?”

“Stop it,” said Aziraphale, swatting her away. “Your hand’s too cold.”

Crowley pushed her hand between her own legs to warm it, and snuggled in. “You’re right,” she said. “You need an outlet, too. Getting all judgy – that’s a very angelic thing to do.”

“Piss off.”

“What happened to your miracle? You need to do one. We’re off balance as it is. I know – why don’t you fix their marriage?”

Aziraphale peered over the rims of her glasses, as if to say that that some things were beyond even her divine powers.

“All right, maybe not that,” said Crowley. “It needs to be something for Warlock. Something that will steer him closer to the path of light.”

“Such as? He’s four.”

“Give me the child until he is seven…” said Crowley.

Aziraphale snorted. “Oh, bollocks to Ignatius Loyola,” she said. “A child under the age of seven is not some raw piece of clay one can simply sculpt into whatever shape one pleases. Nurture is only part of the picture. Nature is strong, and your average four year old – when stripped to his simplest nature – is something like a cross between Mr Bean and Attila the Hun. Much more your sort of thing. _I’m_ at a disadvantage from the get-go.”

But she wasn’t. As it turned out, Warlock had a lot of good in him. He was thrilled at the prospect of having a brother or sister. He sectioned off an area of his bedroom for the baby, decorated the walls with pictures, devised games, and talked incessantly about how he was going to share his toys from now on. “So much for Attila the Hun,” said Aziraphale, who was far smugger about this development than she had any right to be. “Looks like he doesn’t even need a miracle to steer him towards the path of light. There’s a lot of good in that boy. I always said it was there, somewhere.”

“Whatever,” said Crowley. “You don’t have to deal with the goats.”

Harriet had won the initial battle, but the war over the electric fence rumbled on. The goats had multiplied, and their frequent garden invasions were now made even more destructive by Warlock’s repeated attempts to ride them like miniature ponies.

It was agreed that Crowley should have some time off before the new baby arrived, and so Crowley arranged it so that Aziraphale could accompany her to London. They hadn’t made any definite plans as yet, but Crowley was still pining for the Bentley. It was spring and she had happy visions of driving homicidally down country lanes frilled with hawthorne and Queen Anne’s Lace, with an angel in the passenger seat and a hip flask under her stocking top. And they’d go wherever Aziraphale wanted to go, just as Crowley had once promised.

They met in St. James’s Park, the same way they had for centuries, and in a variety of fashions. Lace collars, tall hats, high heels and stockings. Crowley had been here before in a _robe anglaise_, and then a few decades later she’d been back, looking like a poker in the new Empire line styles. Aziraphale, though, had always taken the male corporation, which was perhaps why it was such a surprise when Crowley found her feeding the ducks.

Aziraphale wore a full-skirted white shirtwaist dress, and a cardigan the colour of undyed butter. She wore the highest heels she’d worn since the French Revolution, and her plump calves and pretty ankles were the stuff of fantasy. She smiled when she saw Crowley, a thing she’d never, ever done before. According to the accepted steps of this well-rehearsed dance, they were supposed to edge inconspicuously towards one another until they were close enough to exchange words, and then with the minimum of eye contact. But today Aziraphale smiled. She looked right at Crowley and smiled, her wind blown hair sticking to her rose pink lipstick, and her billowing skirt white as wings. The smile, too, was different. It was the one she wore in Sussex, the one she wore whenever they had one another all to themselves, cosy beside the cottage fireside. Once upon a time she’d stood here in a different shape and hissed the word ‘fraternising’ through clenched teeth, but that seemed like another life. Just a sad dream, a cloud easily dispersed by the bright sunshine of the happiness they’d shared.

“So what now?” said Crowley, as they strolled arm in arm beside the lake. “You want to go to the bookshop?”

Aziraphale shook her head. “No. I don’t think so.”

“Why? I thought you’d be desperate to get back.”

“It’s funny – I thought I would, too. I thought I’d be crawling out of my skin with wanting to get back to my books, but…I don’t know. It’s silly.”

“What is?”

“You’ll laugh,” said Aziraphale.

“I won’t,” said Crowley. “Tell me.”

“The truth is, I rather _like_ this. Being incognito and all. I feel like a glamorous spy.” She laughed at herself. “I told you it was silly.”

“Shut up. You _love_ subterfuge. You always have.”

“Oh, I suppose I do,” said Aziraphale, tucking a stray curl back behind her ear. “I don’t know why I’ve never done this before – changed sex, I mean. Gone this deep undercover. It’s liberating, in a way. I know Heaven keeps an eye on the bookshop, and they’re probably expecting me to show up, which I think is part of the reason why I don’t want to. Upstairs are so used to me taking a male aspect that I’m not sure that it would even occur to them that I _could_ change.”

“Well, no,” said Crowley. “You’ve been wearing the same trousers since eighteen forty-five.”

Aziraphale huffed. “See? That’s just it. Aziraphale – the unsurprising one. I expect that’s what they all say about it. The stodgy old plodder who sits around collecting dust in a bookshop. Occasionally makes vague noises about thwarting demons.”

“Not demons. _A_ demon. You’d better not have any other demons on the side.”

Aziraphale giggled. “No, darling. I’m strictly a one demon kind of angel.”

They went to the absurdly overpriced café in the park, and had a glass of wine. Aziraphale’s curls kept working themselves loose from her French twist, lending even more softness to her lovely, heart-shaped face. She was white and gold and boozy-blushed against the golden backdrop of late daffodils, and it was true – she _was_ different. She was bolder and brighter than she’d ever been. Even from the very first moment, when she’d laughed at Crowley’s observation that it would have been funny if Crowley had done the good thing and she the bad, she had immediately checked herself. But she laughed a lot more often now, and it was wonderful to see.

“So, what do you fancy, then?” said Crowley. “London is our oyster. We could pop to the Globe, for old times’ sake. London Eye, perhaps? For vertigo’s sake? Or we could just go back to my place and shag until we can’t feel our toes.”

And just like that the old caution was back. Out of nowhere. Aziraphale took a purse-lipped sip of her wine and shook her head. “That might not be such a good idea, actually.”

“What? Why?”

“The same reason I don’t want to go to the bookshop,” said Aziraphale. “They know where we live. I don’t want to alert anyone of my presence. Or yours. As soon as we pop up in any of the old familiar places they’ll clock us and we’ll be…” She sighed. “We’ll be Aziraphale and Crowley again. Instead of Frances and Ashtoreth.”

“Right,” said Crowley, relieved to have understood her for once. “You’re right. We’re on holiday.”

Aziraphale brightened. “We _are_.”

“Right you are, Franny. Where do you want to go on your holidays, then? I could pick up the Bentley, hop on the Eurostar. This time tomorrow we could be in the Dordogne, up to our tits in sunshine and vin rouge. Or we could just stay in London. There’s always the Ritz, although to tell you the truth I find the rooms a bit chintzy for my taste. Much prefer the Savoy.”

“Mm. Nicer views, too.” Aziraphale sighed. “Oh, a room with a view of the river. How lovely.”

“Done,” said Crowley.

“What did you do?”

“Nothing. Yet. Come on.”

The perfect suite at the Savoy had just become available in mysterious circumstances. It was one of the Art Deco suites, with a burled walnut bed, a marble bathroom, and – of course – a view of the river.

“So,” said Crowley, when they had finished christening the bed. “What surprising things would you like to do next?”

Aziraphale, her shirtwaist unbuttoned and one boob spilling out of her displaced bra, delicately kicked her knickers off the end of her toes. “Well,” she said. “I think we should order room service.”

“Definitely.”

“Get a bit tipsy. Book a massage.”

“Spa treatments? Sounds like a plan.” Crowley propped herself up on one elbow to admire her handiwork. Her dark red lipstick was smeared all over Aziraphale’s mouth and breasts. The air was once again faintly gritty with stardust, the gunpowder whiff of angel sex overlaying the salt-sweet smell of the human version. Crowley wanted to ask her if she could smell it, too, but Aziraphale didn’t have Crowley’s nose, and besides, it would have opened the door on about a dozen forbidden conversations. Instead she kissed Aziraphale’s smudged lips, ran her hands through her hair and smiled when her fingers caught on the matted part at the back, where Aziraphale’s thrown-back head had rubbed against the sheets.

“And let’s go shopping,” Aziraphale said, stretching so that the upturned hem of her skirt rode higher over her parted thighs. Both tits were all the way out of her bra now, their tips even pinker than usual from Crowley’s teeth and lipstick.

“Is this the kind of shopping you did when you were supposed to be learning about gardening?” said Crowley. “But you wandered off and bought a bunch of frilly knickers instead?”

“Absolutely.” Aziraphale turned on the bedroom eyes, smoky blue and fringed with long, gold-tipped lashes. “It’s not that I don’t love the fact that you never wear underwear, but…well…”

“What?” said Crowley, her hand sliding up Aziraphale’s thigh. “You want to see me in something black and lacy?”

“Very much.”

“Why? Does it turn you on?” Crowley slipped her fingers between Aziraphale’s legs to check. Aziraphale was so wet that the soft sounds of Crowley’s exploring fingers could be heard over the background rumble of London traffic. “Is there anything that _doesn’t_ turn you on?”

Aziraphale just moaned quietly and spread herself wider. She’d only been fucked ten minutes ago, but the slow rhythm of her hips was once again deliberate. She rocked on the cushion of her round arse, so that Crowley barely had to push to feel her way inside, into the liquid silk heat of her. The tableau on the bed was a dozen times dirtier now – a lipstick smudged angel, with her blonde hair mussed and her tits falling out of her bra, her legs open, her skirt round her waist and her perfect cowrie-shell pink pussy stuffed to the knuckles with a demon’s fingers. Filthy, and yet one of the holiest things Crowley had ever seen, because it was impossible not to touch the inside of an angel – at least, this angel – and not know that she was one of the purest sparks of God’s light to ever illuminate the world.

Crowley leaned down and kissed her mouth again, seeking refuge in simple lust. She found the tender spot in the front wall and felt Aziraphale’s tongue tremble inside her mouth. “Horny wee beastie,” she whispered, in Ashtoreth’s voice. “You can’t get enough, can you?”

“I can’t help it.” Aziraphale’s hips came up to claim more of her. She looked delirious, out of her mind. “I’ve never done this before.”

“Done what?”

Aziraphale shuddered under the pressure of Crowley’s thumb. “Had an affair,” she said.

“Is that what we’re doing? Having an affair?”

“Crowley, you’re _inside_ me.” Her eyes were enormous. She drew herself in around Crowley’s fingers, in a slick, knowing, velvet embrace. Crowley moaned and buried her face in Aziraphale’s tits, sucking at her nipples as she began to fuck her again, deep and slow. Fucking. Sex. Fun sex, but sex just the same, even if Aziraphale’s cunt felt like love, and smelled like stardust. That was just how it went, when you fucked a being of pure love – some of it was bound to spill over here and there.

Crowley sunk lower, trailing kisses over Aziraphale’s belly as she went.

“Crowley…”

“Mm?”

“Let’s buy sex toys,” said Aziraphale, as if she’d been rehearsing the line for a while.

“Definitely,” said Crowley, and carried on down.

The next day they went shopping, first to Agent Provocateur, and then to Coco de Mer. Aziraphale wandered around the famous sex shop with the same polite, interested air as a minor royal touring a cake factory, and emerged laden with an eyewatering haul of dildos, buttplugs, ben-wa balls and a kind of suctioning vibrator so enthusiastically praised by the saleswoman that Aziraphale couldn’t even wait to get back to the hotel to try it out on Crowley. She slipped it under Crowley’s skirt in the back of the taxi, and Crowley – who had practically invented the advertising industry – was stunned to discover a product that really did perform exactly as advertised. Crowley had four simultaneous orgasms and forgot how her own knees worked.

“Well, it was obviously a lot more effective than sitting on the washing machine,” said Aziraphale, as Crowley wobbled Bambi-legged across the lobby of the Savoy. “Although now I’m slightly worried that you won’t need me any more.”

Crowley wanted to point out that shower heads and pool jets also existed, but that hadn’t stopped Aziraphale wanting Crowley. However, her brain was still trying to make sense of what had just happened to her pussy, and instead she just said, “Nrk,” as she staggered into the lift. By the time they reached the suite she had gathered just enough wits to formulate her revenge, which consisted of pouncing on Aziraphale, whipping down her knickers and fucking her with her brand new sparkly purple dildo.

“Please,” said Aziraphale, still panting as Crowley teased her through the aftershocks. “Please, darling. I want to do you.”

“No,” said Crowley, reaching for the bag on the hotel room floor. “It’s my turn to stick things in you.” She thought about deploying the clitsucker, but that would have just been cruel at this point. Instead she grabbed the box with the weighted balls, the ones that were supposed to sit inside you and tease rather than satisfy. “Open wide.”

Aziraphale raised her head at the unfamiliar sensation. “Ooh. What’s that?”

“Ben-wa balls,” said Crowley, and popped the second one inside. A little loop of bright pink silicone protruded from between Aziraphale’s lips like a saucy tongue. Crowley kissed her there, and got up off the floor. “Why don’t you order us some afternoon tea or something? I’m going to have a shower. Slip into something less comfortable.”

Crowley took herself off into the bathroom with the Agent Provocateur bags. She was surprised to find herself suddenly as nervous as a new bride, and it took her a moment or two to realise why. Although her French was far superior to Aziraphale’s, she wasn’t nearly as fluent in Lingerie. She didn’t have much to _put_ in it, to start with. She’d always been rather flat-chested anyway, but had never been more conscious of the fact than she was when in the presence of a buxom angel. Aziraphale’s knockers frequently popped over the cups of her bra like the tops of a pair of fabulous mammary soufflés. Crowley’s were more like the result of a cooking class disaster where the person making the soufflé had forgotten to whisk in the egg whites.

Still, Aziraphale loved them, and the little lacy something she had picked out for Crowley was helpfully wired and padded to lend her – if not an actual cleavage – at least the illusion that she’d gone up a cup size. Wings of velvet trimmed net concealed where Crowley was straight up and down instead of curvy, and opened at the front to show off her flat belly. But for some strategically placed embroidery, the matching underpants were more or less transparent, and when Crowley turned to check out the rear view she was pleased to find that this funny fashion for partial concealment was working for her in much the same way it worked for Aziraphale, even if Crowley hadn’t been blessed with such a ripe set of curves.

She looked at herself in the mirror, and broke into an idiot smile. This was insanity, and perfection, because they were really doing this. An affair, Aziraphale had said, in her old-fashioned way. They were having an affair. “I,” Crowley said to her reflection, under her breath. “Am having an affair. With Aziraphale.”

She emerged from the bathroom to find Aziraphale sitting at the tiny dining room table. She wore a hotel dressing gown and probably not much else, her casually finger-combed hair shining platinum in the reflected sunlight from the river. The table before her was set with a fussy tea – finger sandwiches and smoked salmon, scones and clotted cream – and she was already happily stuffing her face. Perhaps it was just the way the light caught the delicate peach-fuzz on her cheek, or perhaps she really was glowing. When she saw Crowley she smiled, and it was that Sussex smile again, open and unanxious and uninhibited. The words almost fell out of Crowley’s mouth then, but she checked herself just in time.

“How do I look?” she said, instead.

“Delicious,” said Aziraphale, reaching out an arm to her. “I could eat you.”

“Finish your cakes first,” said Crowley. Her kiss tasted of butter and jam. She really _was_ glowing, and although Aziraphale couldn’t say it, Crowley knew. She knew in her heart that Aziraphale was in love. She’d known for sure since 1967, when Aziraphale had surprised her with holy water – in a tartan fucking Thermos flask, of all things. “How are the love egg thingies?”

Aziraphale fluttered and blushed. “Extraordinary,” she said, as Crowley took her seat at the table. “I feel as though I’m constantly on the verge of orgasm, although that could be a lot to do with the patisserie selection. Don’t those strawberry tarts look divine?”

“You’d know,” said Crowley, reaching for the champagne. This was torture, like one of the wishes Crowley had so gleefully granted throughout the centuries, the ones where you got everything you ever wanted, and it hurt. It hurt like the blue of Aziraphale’s eyes, and the blonde of her hair, and the blush of the warm blood beneath her peaches and cream complexion. It hurt like the warmth of her body at night, and the now familiar way she folded herself into Crowley, with her bum against the curve of Crowley’s lap, one breast spilling over Crowley’s embracing arm, and the other soft and heavy in Crowley’s hand. “I should tell you…” Crowley started to say.

Aziraphale hesitated, a strawberry tart halfway to her lips. The flash of panic in her eyes was like that of an emergency flare gun, and it was this that rescued Crowley.

“I just…I just wanted to say,” Crowley said, her eyes starting to sting. She had no idea what she was going to say, but then she remembered something Aziraphale had said in St. James’s Park. “I’ve never found you unsurprising. Never.” The blue of Aziraphale’s eyes burned brighter and harder. “Just so you know.”


	6. Goat Wars Two: Electric Boogaloo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for your patience in waiting for the next chapter. Also, please be aware that the content warnings are for this chapter in particular.

In May Harriet Dowling gave birth to a daughter. The baby was named Ursula, after Harriet said she wanted an old English name to go with Warlock. Aziraphale – in what may very well have been a D.H. Lawrence flavoured brainfart – reached for the first English saint on her mental shelf and came up with Ursula. Harriet liked it so much that she didn’t even care when her husband pointed out that it was also the name of a Disney witch.

Ursula Dowling proved to be as saintly as her namesake. She was one of those perfect babies who took to the breast with very little fuss, and could be relied upon to burp properly when patted on the back afterwards. “She can get a bit pukey sometimes,” said Crowley, who had once again taken to carrying piles of muslin cloths in case of baby vomit. “But otherwise she’s a dream. Much easier than Warlock was.”

And she was. She was a beautiful baby, with her mother’s delicate features and a pair of wide, wondering blue eyes. She had a sticky-up tuft of fine brown hair, a precious button nose, and a pink mouth that stretched open in the most darling yawns before falling back into toothless, rosebud repose. Her tiny head barely filled Aziraphale’s palm.

Harriet was on her way out of the house. Aziraphale had happened to pass her in the hallway, and Harriet had let her hold the baby. “Oh wait,” Harriet said, adjusting her nursing bra. “Diaper bags. One second. Do you mind waiting with her?”

“Not at all,” said Aziraphale, cuddling the baby. She booped her tiny nose. “I get to hold _you_ a little bit longer. Hurray.”

Crowley delurked from somewhere behind the grandfather clock. She slunk closer and peered over Aziraphale’s shoulder at Ursula. “There’s something wrong with it,” he said.

Aziraphale glared at her. “What on earth are you talking about?” she said, and returned her attention to Ursula. “Pay no attention to silly old Nanny, my cream puff. You’re simply perfect. Yes, you are. Look at your dear little fingernails.”

Crowley made a soft gagging noise. “Are you listening to yourself?” she said. “You’ve gone…wrong.”

“I have not. And don’t tell me you haven’t cooed all over her, too. I’ve _heard_ you.”

“That’s what I mean,” said Crowley, eyeing the child with deep suspicion. “She makes me go all weird. All…gooey.”

“She’s a baby, Crowley.”

“I know, but she’s overdoing it. She’s _too_ cute. It’s…it’s unreasonable.” Unreasonable or not, Crowley couldn’t resist putting a fingertip in Ursula’s palm, so that the baby’s exquisitely small fingers curled reflexively and squeezed. “Was this you?”

“Me?” said Aziraphale.

“Did you do your miracle without telling me? Did you bless this child and make her unreasonably…aww.” Ursula’s face crumpled slightly and Crowley reached for her. “Come to Nanny, petal. That’s a gassy face, isn’t it?” She put the baby on her shoulder and gently patted her back. “No, seriously,” she said. “Was this you?”

Aziraphale laughed. “No. That’s just babies for you. They’re all like that. They’re all miracles.”

Ursula hiccupped. Crowley stiffened. “Shit,” she said.

“What?”

“Forgot the muslin.” The baby had been amiably sick over her shoulder.

Warlock turned five that summer. He’d been so looking forward to having a brother or sister to play with that Aziraphale was blindsided by his sudden metamorphosis into – as Crowley put it – ‘a five-star, unleaded little shit’. Warlock no longer enjoyed Peter Rabbit and Mrs Tiggywinkle. If Aziraphale attempted to read him stories he would roll his eyes and reel off the next line – as he imagined it should be – in a loud, sarcastic monotone. And the next line was always ominously the same.

“…and then the world blew up. The. End.”

“All right,” said Aziraphale, after her attempt to entertain Warlock with a junior version of the Odyssey had ended in Warlock-supplied armageddon before Odysseus had even left the towers of Troy behind him. “Why are you ending every story with ‘and then the world blew up’?”

Warlock shrugged.

“Don’t look at me like that, young man. Is this because Nanny’s been telling you that one day the world will boil away in fire and brimstone, and that you will reign as king of the ashes?”

Warlock shrugged again, and poked at the grass with a stick. In other words, yes. Nanny had been telling him exactly that, and more besides. Bloody Crowley. She was getting very overzealous lately. Anyone would have thought she was looking forward to the apocalypse.

“Nanny tells good stories,” said Warlock. “You don’t.”

“That’s hardly fair,” said Aziraphale. “You didn’t let me get to the good parts. The adventure hadn’t even begun, but you went and insisted that the world blew up. If you hadn’t decided to end the world there and then you might have heard about all kinds of exciting things, like the sirens – beautiful monsters who lured sailors to shore with the sound of their singing, and then ate them. Or Polyphemus the Cyclops, a hideous giant with one monstrous eye in the middle of his forehead where he should have had two—”

“—that one,” said Warlock, suddenly interested. “Tell that one. It sounds good.”

“It _is _good,” said Aziraphale. “One of the best in the world, actually.” She was about to begin again, when she realised that there ought to be a moral to this lesson. “But how can I tell it if the world has already blown up? There’ll be no more stories if the world blows up. That’s the trouble with ending a story with ‘And then the world blew up,’ you see. You eliminate the possibility that there can ever be a sequel.”

Warlock frowned. “What’s a sequel?”

Antichrist or not, Aziraphale was reminded that she was still dealing with a five-year-old, after all. She was fumbling for an understandable yet accurate definition of the word when Warlock was distracted: the goats were back.

The Goat Wars had rumbled on for almost a full year now. And the goats had multiplied. The black billy goat had sired several kids, and the Dowling residence was subject to frequent goat incursions by his small harem and their offspring. And every time it was the same argument. Dowling demanded an electric fence, and Harriet insisted he would have no such thing as long as she had breath in her body. “It’s dangerous, Thad. And Warlock gets into _everything_.”

Which was absolutely true. He did. His fifth birthday seemed to have brought a degree of speed and mobility that often left Crowley with migraines at the end of the day. He was now on his feet and scampering down the lawn towards the black and white goat. Crowley stepped through the dining room door onto the patio. “Warlock…stop that at once,” she called, which was Warlock’s cue to laugh fiendishly and once again – despite all previous failures – to attempt to sit astride the animal as if it were a pony. “Warlock, I _mean_ it.”

Dowling appeared, a golf club in his hand. “How the hell did that thing get in here again?”

“I have no idea,” said Crowley.

“Well, _why_ don’t you know?”

Crowley, who was several inches taller than him, lowered her head and peered over her glasses. “I’m a _Nanny_, Ambassssador,” she hissed. “Not an animal wrangler.”

“Right. Sure. Sorry,” said Dowling, looking nervous. He called to the boy. “Warlock!”

Warlock stopped what he was doing and trudged up the lawn towards his father. “Miss Fell, can _you_ find out how they’re getting in?” Dowling asked.

“I can certainly try,” said Aziraphale.

“Get it out of here,” said Dowling, and turned to the Antichrist, who – despite the distinct goatish air hanging over the proceedings – looked frankly sheepish. “And you – enough with the goat rodeo. We’re gonna have words, you and I.”

Aziraphale managed to catch the goat by its collar, and she led it away down the lawn. Crowley followed, still hissing slightly.

“You have to stop doing that,” she said.

“Doing what?” said Crowley.

“That eye thing you do. It’s not very human.”

“S’not meant to be.”

“Yes, but you are. Supposed to be human, I mean. The eyes are something of a giveaway. You don’t catch me flapping around the greenhouse, do you? Try to keep your infernal tendencies for when you’re off the clock, dear.”

Crowley opened the gate and swatted the goat through it. “When you say infernal tendencies,” she said. “Are you also talking about that thing I do with my tongue?”

Aziraphale giggled. “Stop it.”

“Did I mention that I had the evening off, by the way?”

“Really?”

“Really,” said Crowley, securing the rope around the gate. “Crack open your best single malt and leave your knickers on the bedroom floor, because I need to—”

She stopped in mid-sentence, then a moment later she was face down on the ground. There was a strange, burnt smell in the air and it all happened so fast that Aziraphale’s first impulse was to look upwards in search of the thunderbolt from Heaven that she had – in more anxious moments – suspected that both of them had had coming for a while now. She dropped to her knees, and when she touched Crowley her fingers tingled.

“_Ow_,” said Crowley, and removed her glasses. They had left little red burn marks behind the tops of her ears. Her hair was standing up on end, startled out of its usual neat waves.

“Darling, are you all right?”

“No,” said Crowley, scowling and smouldering. “Fucking electric fence.”

“Oh no. We’re back on that, are we?”

“Apparently.” Crowley, knees shaking, got to her feet. She staggered and leaned heavily on Aziraphale’s arm. “Where are the bloody warning signs? _Why_ are there no warning signs? There are _children_ here, for fuck’s sake. He _knows_ Warlocks chases the goats. Does that stupid bastard _want_ his kid turned into pork crackling or something? What kind of fucking voltage is that thing packing anyway?”

“A lot, obviously,” said Aziraphale. “Come on. Let’s get you a nice stiff drink.”

“Or twelve,” said Crowley. “Fuck me, that almost ended in an awkward paperwork situation. Thank Satan I wasn’t wearing nylon underwear, otherwise it would have ended up melted to my arse, as well as getting covered in piss.”

There were strong words in the Dowling household that night. Most of them from Crowley, but Warlock had weighed in, too. The scolding from his father had put him in a foul mood, and when Crowley had made him eat tomatoes at lunch he had taken out his feelings on Aziraphale’s tomato crop with a large stick.

“And not just the Alicantes either,” said Aziraphale, that night, when they were kicking back with some much-needed drinks. “He destroyed most of the Sungolds and all of those lovely Tiger Reds. He’s absolutely dreadful. Are you _sure_ you haven’t been overdoing it with the malign influences?”

“No,” said Crowley. “I haven’t been doing anything more than usual. He’s been like this ever since she had the new baby.” She lay sprawled on the sofa, her head on Aziraphale’s thigh, her feet hanging over the arm of the sofa to bask in the warmth of the first fire of the autumn. Four years this autumn, Aziraphale thought. Four years since that incident with the carrot had kicked her over the edge into an affair that had been six thousand years in the making. It was nothing – a drop in the bucket of time – and the thought of the vanishing years ahead made her anxious. Warlock was five now. Six more years and then what? Back to normal? Opposite sides?

“I don’t understand it,” she said. “He was so looking forward to having a brother or sister. He was an absolute angel.”

Crowley – impossibly long and lean in a pair of black silk pyjamas – sat up and reached for her Scotch. Her hair had settled back down, although it did look slightly bigger than usual. Drastic though it was, leaning against an electric fence was certainly one way to get that all-important root lift.

“He thought he was going to get someone to play with,” Crowley said. “Not some small, wailing pram nugget who a) doesn’t play with him, and b) takes up all the sweet, sweet attention that used to be his.”

“Is that how that works?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me. You should see how his dad acted out when God decided to make humans. Satan didn’t handle the whole sibling jealousy thing very well at all.”

“Yes. And we know how that turned out,” said Aziraphale.

“He’s his father’s son. I had nothing to worry about.”

“Worry about what?”

“Nothing. Told you. Nothing to worry about at all.” Crowley set down her drink and leaned in. “Now, can we _please_ stop talking about work?” Her thin, slippery tongue tasted of whiskey, and her nipples were hard beneath the black silk. Aziraphale, who had dressed up for her in a lace negligee and French knickers, settled astride her lap. Crowley’s hands swept up over her thighs to her waist, then up to cup and fondle her breasts. Aziraphale freed them from the lace and Crowley moaned – “…fuck, yeah. Feed me your tits,” – and started to lick and nibble, her gold eyes hectic, and the greedy, suckling sounds of her mouth a wet counterpoint to the dry crackle of the fire.

Aziraphale ran her fingers through Crowley’s hair and sighed. It had been a long day, and it was only now – when she allowed herself to relax – that she realised how much she wanted this. Needed it, even. And with that came a flash of anxiety, because she had no idea how she was going to go without it when the time came. But she couldn’t think about that now, because Crowley’s tongue was hot on her nipple, and her body was already eager to respond. Crowley groaned into Aziraphale’s cleavage, her boozy breath filling the scant space between like brandy fumes in a snifter.

“Darling…” Aziraphale whispered, wriggling even deeper into Crowley’s lap.

“I love your boobs,” Crowley said, and started to croon softly to them. “Who’s got the pinkest, roundest, most perfect boobies in the world…”

Aziraphale froze, her lips against the top of Crowley’s red head. “Crowley…are you _baby talking_ my breasts?”

Crowley peered up at her. “Shit,” she said. “I assume you’re not into that?”

“You assume correctly, yes.”

“I’m sorry,” said Crowley, her sigh fanning Aziraphale’s skin. “I’ve spent so much time with the kids that my brain has gone all Fisher-Price. I found myself enjoying turkey dinosaurs the other day.”

“Turkey what?”

“Dinosaurs. It’s mechanically recovered meat made into the shape of dinosaurs. Then they put breadcrumbs all over them and cook them.”

Aziraphale wrinkled her nose. “Well, that sounds…hideous.”

“They sort of are,” said Crowley. “But I ate one off the side of Warlock’s plate. And I liked it.” She looked very tired. “I need some hardcore fucking adult content in my life right now.”

Aziraphale got up off the sofa. Crowley’s large amber eyes lit up as Aziraphale reached up under her lacy wrapper and hooked her thumbs beneath the band of her French knickers. Fancy lingerie always made her feel pretty enough on its own, but when she was all dressed up and Crowley was devouring her with her eyes she felt so beautiful that it had to be a sin. She smiled, dropped her drawers, and slid back into Crowley’s lap, straddling her knees. “That’s my girl,” said Crowley, with a very demonic leer.

“Adult enough for you, dear?” said Aziraphale.

“It’s a start, definitely.” Crowley’s hand slipped between her open legs, fingers pushing inside. Aziraphale rocked into her touch, spreading her knees wider and steadying herself on the back of the couch, her outstretched arms either side of Crowley’s head. Crowley’s long fingers dipped deeper into her flesh, stretching her gently and making her pulse seem to narrow and concentrate in the hot, greedy space between her thighs. “You’re so lovely,” Crowley whispered, her mouth wet on Aziraphale’s nipple. “So warm, so soft, so horny…” She was all shades of fire – red and black and shimmering gold – against the pale pink of Aziraphale’s breasts. “Sometimes I just want to crawl inside you and live there.”

Aziraphale sighed and drew in her muscles, squeezing Crowley’s fingers. “That would be impractical,” she said.

“Maybe.” Crowley’s fingers found that elusive, melting place inside her, making her moan. “But right now…?” Her thumb was at work on the outside, rubbing slow circles as her fingers moved within. “I think you need to come all over my fingers. Just to get us in the mood.”

“And then…?”

Crowley laughed. “Live in the moment, Aziraphale. Live in the moment.”

Afterwards they went upstairs to bed. Crowley had shaved off all her pubic hair, because “that bloody electric shock made my bush smell like Moses got involved somewhere.” Aziraphale couldn’t have cared less about the reason why she’d done it, and eagerly dived down between Crowley’s thighs to lick and play. Crowley was soft as rose petals under Aziraphale’s tongue, and she kept on coming and coming and coming, until Aziraphale’s fingers were as pruny as if she’d spent the evening in the bath.

“Such a pillow princess,” Aziraphale murmured, her lips against the inside of Crowley’s thigh.

Crowley lay spread out on the bed, long legs sprawled out at the hip, her flat belly still rising and falling with her slowing breaths. “What did you expect me to do?” she said. “You’re the one who keeps fucking me.”

Aziraphale kissed her puffy half-parted lips. “You didn’t tell me to stop.”

“You’re an angel with an oral fixation. Why the hell would I ever tell you to stop?”

“Do you think I’m fixated?” Aziraphale said, even as she parted Crowley’s flesh once again. Crowley’s inner lips were smaller than her own, her hooded clitoris high up, like the pointed apex of a gothic arch. “I can’t help it. Your cunt is so beautiful.” She pushed with a finger, watched it disappear, and rubbed her cheek against the silk of Crowley’s freshly shaven mound. She had come only once tonight, when they were downstairs on the sofa, preferring instead to relish the delicacy before her, revelling in the taste, the texture, and the naughty, spicy smell.

Crowley arched her hips up into the touch. She was slick and hot and gave easily. “Again?” she said, but she let Aziraphale in, just the same. “This isn’t fair, Aziraphale. It’s your turn.”

“Shh. I’m having a wonderful time watching you enjoy yourself.” Aziraphale settled in for a lazy exploration, her head resting on Crowley’s belly. Three fingers now, so that she could feel the tightness of Crowley’s perineum on the outstroke. It seemed as fine as gossamer, but Aziraphale knew how elastic it really was, and she felt the heat between her own legs blaze hotter as she bunched her fingers together and pushed in with four. Crowley stretched like a snake and Aziraphale’s lust raced ahead of her, already hungry for the intense thrill of being all the way in, and feeling every last tiny ripple and twitch of Crowley’s climax, all the way up to her wrist.

“Darling…” she whispered, and moved her head, only to feel something warm and unfamiliar beneath her chin. “Crowley, what are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

Aziraphale slipped her fingers out. “It looks like you’re growing a penis.”

Crowley gave a filthy grin. “Bingo.”

“Crowley…”

“What? You like cock. You _do_. What else were you doing at that ‘exclusive gentleman’s club’ of yours?”

“The gavotte, actually,” said Aziraphale, tentatively caressing the brand new appendage.

“The what?”

“Never mind.” She lowered her head and tasted. It didn’t taste any different, having grown out of Crowley’s usual anatomy, but the new, thick fleshiness made her quiver and ache. She’d been turned on for most of the night, and when she sucked Crowley bucked and moaned, fuelling her desire.

Crowley reached down and brushed Aziraphale’s hair out of the way, watching her the way she always did whenever Aziraphale had her mouth full. “I want to be inside you,” she whispered.

Aziraphale scrambled up on top. Crowley took herself in hand and went to tease, running the wet head back and forth between Aziraphale’s thighs, but Aziraphale was beyond waiting. She swatted Crowley’s hand away and swallowed her to the hilt in one smooth motion, making them both cry out. Her hips immediately found their rhythm, her cunt a soft, wet demanding thing that would no longer be denied. She felt as though she could come in an instant, but then she looked down at Crowley, at her little breasts with their naughty red nipples and her big, wide eyes, so lovely and so sinful that she deserved to be savoured.

“Please,” Crowley said. “Please, angel. Please. Fuck me.”

Aziraphale bent to kiss her, smothering the words they couldn’t say. She’d been waiting for too long, and now she was so full of love that her wings burst free and her halo lit up the room. She sat back, stretching her wings, riding harder, and Crowley cried out and started to moan – a cracked-throated but steady chant of _angel angel angel_. It was too much, too good, and as she began to come Aziraphale felt herself start to slip out of one reality and into another. She had caught glimpses before, of the real Crowley, beyond the corporation. She had seen the ragged wing of darkness before, but now she saw the burned-out holes, light-sinks left where once angel eyes had stared from. Crowley was forever cut off from the light of God’s love, but Aziraphale was brim full of that light, and all her instincts screamed to pour that light into dark places. She opened her metaphysical mouth and began to sing…

Something broke.

Aziraphale tumbled back down into a body that was coming, an unwieldy mass of jiggle, sweat, and disproportionate pleasure. Crowley lay beneath her, hands clutching the shaking bars of the headboard, sharp white teeth against her lower lip as her voice exploded out of her in a long wailing, wavering “fuuuuuuuhhhh-ck.” Gasping, Aziraphale fell forward and grabbed hold of the bars, so that they were both clinging to the bed, Aziraphale’s breasts falling in Crowley’s face, and her flesh still pulsing through the last shocks and shudders.

The glass on the bedside table had shattered at the sound of her voice. Whiskey dripped onto the rug. On the dressing table, the vase full of late roses had exploded in a mound of soil and new root growth, and Aziraphale’s first, muddled thought that was that her Estee Lauder was somewhere under that sudden, supernatural landslide. Crowley’s panting breaths slowed against the side of her neck, Crowley’s fingers digging into her hip. Her new-grown cock receded as her corporation returned to normal, but the glimpsed darkness lingered in Aziraphale’s head like the slow-developing bouquet of an exquisite, expensive wine. A ringing hush settled over the whole estate. The humans moaned in their sleep and sighed, and the earth itself shuddered and stretched like a yawning cat, rocking the shards of broken glass on the table.

“Oopsy,” said Aziraphale. She rolled over onto her side, pulling Crowley with her. Her wings hung over the side of the bed, and resisted all of her attempts to fold them. They vibrated gently, trembling from root to tip, like a tuning fork that only knew one note.

Crowley’s dry lips brushed over her eyebrows, the closed lids of her eyes, the slope of her nose. “You really need that miracle, don’t you?” Crowley said, sliding her thigh up between Aziraphale’s. Before, after, during – she could never resist twining herself around Aziraphale.

“I can’t help it.” Aziraphale swallowed hard. _I love you. I’m in love with you. I’m hopelessly, stupidly, desperately, painfully in love with you, and I know that you know it, too. I’m a being of love and yet every night you stuff me so full of it that I’m spilling over, and I love you, I love you, I love you._ Crowley’s hand was on her cheek and she turned her head and pressed her lips against the inside of Crowley’s wrist in a hard, silencing kiss. “I love your hands,” she said, because at least they could say that much. “Did you really build nebulas with them?”

“Yep. And stars. Comets. The Oort Cloud – that’s one of mine, you know.”

“So you make me see stars in more ways than one.”

Crowley laughed and cuddled closer, the tip of her nose against Aziraphale’s. “You could butter that line and serve it in a cinema foyer,” she said. Her liquid gold eyes burned bright as Blake’s tiger. “I see you sometimes, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“I see the real you. Sometimes. When we’re…” She hesitated and Aziraphale’s heart began to race all over again. “…when we’re together. When it gets…intense, I get glimpses of you. The real you. Very big, and very bright. And…blinky. Do you know what I mean?”

“Yes,” said Aziraphale. “Although not completely sure about the blinky part.”

“You have a lot of eyes,” said Crowley.

“Oh. Oh, yes. That. I see.” Aziraphale finally folded her wings and decided to come clean. “I see you, too, sometimes.”

“And what’s that like?”

“A bit sad,” said Aziraphale, tightening her grip around Crowley’s waist. They lay nose to nose, legs tangled, sweat drying, breathing the same warm air. “Seeing the places where the light burned away. You’re very…dark.”

“Uh, yep. Demon.”

Aziraphale searched for the words to explain what she had just seen, but in all the many languages she knew she couldn’t seem to assemble the ones that even began to adequately convey her feelings. In the end it was a human voice that came to her rescue. “And she will make the face of heaven so fine,” she paraphrased. “That all the world will be in love with night, and pay no worship to the garish sun.”

Crowley nuzzled in for a kiss. When she pulled away her lashes were damp. She held Aziraphale fast, her fingers curled around the nape of her neck, their foreheads pressed together. “Is that from one of the gloomy ones?” she said.

“Yes,” said Aziraphale. “I’m afraid so.”

* * *

Aziraphale was not a being given to great depths of self-examination, mainly because she was avoiding the sure and certain self-knowledge that she’d never made the grade. Ever conscious that she wasn’t _quite_ as good as she should be, she instead tried to concentrate on being helpful, friendly, and kind. She had never (well, not much, anyway) lingered too long on how she’d ended up naked on the kitchen table with a carrot inserted into an overenthusiastic orifice, but when forced to examine the incident she had mustered enough self-awareness to understand what it was she had wanted out of the encounter.

Relief.

It had been bound to happen sooner or later, she’d told herself, during the long, confusing night that followed. She’d spent six thousand years trying to remain above the sexual foibles of the humans around her, which wasn’t easy, especially since such a large portion of literature was devoted to romantic or sexual yearning. Add one large-eyed, slinky-hipped, red-haired demon – one who, by the way, had an infuriatingly affecting habit of being unexpectedly nice – and it was no wonder that Aziraphale had not so much _lost_ her virtue as deliberately set fire to it and tossed it out of the nearest window, as gleeful as a hooligan with a Molotov cocktail.

No, it had been largely inevitable at that point, but if Aziraphale had hoped that scratching that six thousand-year-old itch would get it out of their systems, she had been horribly wrong about that.

Yearning dogged her every step. It was there when she went to bed at night, curled on her side with her right breast cupped in Crowley’s hand. It scampered through her dreams and was there when she woke up in the morning and rolled over into the warm patch Crowley had left on her side of the bed. It caught her and snapped most fiercely at her in the strangest moments, like when she realised that she now thought of the left side of the bed as Crowley’s side, or when Crowley brought her a cup of tea in bed, kissed her and said something as banal as “I’ll see you tonight,” or “Have a good day.”

It got her again when she glanced through the window of the greenhouse and saw Crowley within. She was sitting on one end of the old, wrought iron bench, her legs stretched towards the middle and her high heeled foot jiggling the axel of Ursula’s pushchair, rocking the baby. Her dark red lips were moving, but Nanny’s voice was soft and Aziraphale couldn’t hear what she was saying. Warlock could, though. He sat at the other end of the bench, laughing and attentive, and Aziraphale slipped unseen into the greenhouse, curious to find out what Crowley was actually saying to the boy.

“…Snow White stormed into the banqueting hall, brandishing her chainsaw. ‘You idiots,’ she said, to the cowering dwarves. ‘If only one of you dimbulbs had learned the Heimlich manoeuvre instead of singing repetitive songs about the joys of mining, I wouldn’t have ended up in a glass coffin, would I? Now look at the state of me!’”

Crowley paused for effect. Warlock’s eyes were the size of side plates.

“That’s right, Warlock,” Crowley said, sadly. “Poor Snow White had been in that glass coffin for so long that her brain and her body had effectively died, and she had become a zombie. A hungry, hungry zombie. And I’m sure you can guess what happened next.”

Warlock shook his head. Aziraphale edged closer, revealing herself from behind the leaves of the fig tree.

“Snow White took her trusty chainsaw, and with a single blow opened up the skulls of all seven dwarves. There they were, with their fresh, quivering grey matter exposed before her, like a line of decorative soup bowls. The wedding guests gasped in horror, but Snow White just shrugged. ‘I’m not sure what you were expecting,’ she said. ‘I’m a zombie, after all.’ And with that, Snow White picked up a spoon and began to—”

“—really?” said Aziraphale. It couldn’t be healthy for a child to hear these kinds of things.

Apparently Warlock felt differently. “What did she _do_, Nanny?”

“She ate their brains, dear,” said Crowley, still with one foot on the pushchair. “And it wasn’t like Goldilocks, when one was too hot or too cold. They were all just right, although the brain of the stupid one was rather smaller than the others, so she had that one first, as a sort of amuse bouche. But she ate them. All of them, and she enjoyed them, because she was a zombie and because zombies eat brains. There’s no point getting upset with them about it, because that’s what they do, after all.”

“And that’s the moral of the story, is it?” said Aziraphale.

Crowley shrugged. “Yes.”

“What’s a moral?” said Warlock.

“Something you needn’t concern yourself with,” said Crowley.

“Morals are what separate us from the animals,” said Aziraphale, although Warlock’s gnat-like attention span was now focused on Ursula, who had begun to snuffle softly in her sleep. “Morals are what happens when you choose to do good things instead of bad. For example, the moral thing to do would be _not_ to poke your baby sister in the stomach when she’s trying to nap.”

“M’only _tickling_ her,” said Warlock, who was definitely poking. Ursula screwed up her tiny face and looked to be filling her lungs.

“Leave her alone, Warlock,” said Crowley, in a weary, singsong way that said she’d used those exact four words far too many times over the summer.

Warlock grinned and pointed his index finger at Ursula’s stomach, every molecule of his demeanour daring both Crowley and Aziraphale to tell him ‘no,’ just so that he could defy them. There had been times over the past five years that Aziraphale had found herself wondering if it was entirely orthodox for an angel to think of the literal Antichrist as a ‘dear little thing, really,’ but in that moment she had no difficulty believing that the little shit was indeed the Son of Satan.

Something clattered outside, rescuing Ursula at the last minute. It was the goat, the big black billy who had kicked off the Goat Wars in the first place. He had been trying to devour the last scraps of outdoor sage in the kitchen garden, and got his horns caught in one of the plastic cloches used to cover the delicate herbs from early frosts. Warlock shrieked with laughter and ran out of the greenhouse. Ursula sneezed, opened her eyes and began to whine in that low, wind-up way that always reminded Aziraphale of an air raid siren.

“Oh, shit,” said Crowley, plucking the baby from her pushchair. Outside, Warlock was attempting to chase the goat, but the goat was having none of it. It thrashed its head back and forth, trying to free its horns from the cloche, and looking increasingly like an animal who was about to take its fury out on the nearest five-year-old boy. Ursula opened her throat and gave voice at a volume that suggested she had a bright future in opera ahead of her, assuming that her brother didn’t successfully bring about the end of her and everything on Earth around the time she would turn six.

“I can’t do this,” said Crowley. She sounded close to tears. “Nobody warned me there would be two of them.” The goat tossed the cloche free of its horns and fled. Warlock ran after it. “One of them’s already the Antichrist, for fuck’s sake. Why did she have to pop out another one?”

Aziraphale restrained herself from reminding Crowley that she’d been the one tempting Harriet to the liaison that had engendered Ursula in the first place. Instead she reached for the baby. “Give her here.”

“I think she pooed.”

“Well, they do that,” said Aziraphale, taking the infant, who did indeed smell somewhat pungent. “You deal with Warlock. I’ll handle this one.”

“Thanks, angel.”

Aziraphale, who had no desire to investigate the inside of Ursula’s nappy, performed a small, sneaky miracle. The baby, suddenly finding herself clean and dry where previously she had been wet and smelly, stopped crying and blinked up in confusion. “There’s a dear,” said Aziraphale, wondering if she needed a bottle. She had always been good with babies. Older children, not so much, but babies seemed to have a sixth sense for her innate benevolence. “Maybe I should have handled the childcare side of things, and she should have done the garden. She’s much better at it than I am, you know.”

The yearnings were at it again. This time they caught Aziraphale off-guard, and pulled one of their dirtier tricks – something akin to a vision, absurd and impossible. She could picture it so clearly – the two of them, together, in a cottage on the South Downs. A cosy home, with a greenhouse where Crowley could hiss at tomato plants to her heart’s content, and a big kitchen where Aziraphale could make more attempts at jam. And they’d have a brass bed, like the one Aziraphale slept in now, but Crowley would no longer have to leave it at odd hours to check on the children. It would be just them, and they’d be free to make love all night, and wake in each other’s arms. There would be breakfast in bed, and Sunday papers, and Crowley with croissant crumbs sticking to her ruby lips, and unchecked adoration in her huge, honey-coloured eyes. And I love yous. All the I love yous, forever and always.

“She’s so much better at so many things,” Aziraphale said. “Maybe even love. Imagine that, Ursula.”

She saw movement outside the greenhouse and glanced out. Crowley – in her stockinged feet – came barrelling through the herb garden. Her glasses were gone and her pencil skirt once again torn up the side seam, but it was her hair that told the whole story. It stuck up in a staticky frizz.

“Crowley?” said Aziraphale, hoping against hope that she was about to say something reassuring, or at least sweary.

But Crowley didn’t. She just shook her head, her eyes wide. “The fence,” she said. “That fucking fence.”

“_Warlock?_”

She shook her head again. She was so pale she looked as though she was about to keel over where she stood. Her lips moved, half-forming words, but no sound came out, and after what seemed like a million years they finally formed a single word. _Help._

Aziraphale returned the baby to her pushchair and ran. Crowley followed, already neck deep in blame and self-recrimination. “He wasn’t even out of my sight for five minutes. I _told_ him. I told him the voltage was too high…”

Warlock lay on the ground beside the fence. His hair was singed and there was a dark, wet stain on the front of his red shorts. He was horribly still.

Aziraphale didn’t think. She didn’t see the Antichrist. She didn’t see what the boy _meant_. Her innumerable eyes were focused on only one thing in that moment – the small motionless human body. He was so little but already she could see the vast, howling, hurting space he would leave behind him, and she had the power to prevent that hole from opening up in the lives of those who loved him. Her wings burst from her back, almost knocking Crowley sideways, but for once Aziraphale didn’t apologise. She knelt and breathed over the child’s paling lips, and life flowed through her, poured out through her mouth and back into the broken little body on the grass. Warlock’s stilled heart startled back into its regular rhythm. The blood that was already beginning to cool in his veins warmed and began to circulate once more. His poor, fried brain sparked and shook itself, and his large, brown eyes opened and he looked up at them both, frowning and disorientated, but alive.

Crowley audibly exhaled. “Oh my God,” she said. “Oh my poor, darling boy.”

Warlock glanced down at the wet patch on his shorts and his eyes filled with tears of shame. “I had an accident, Nanny,” he said.

“Never mind, dear. Never you mind. Everything’s all right now. We’ll get you all cleaned up and say no more about it.”

Warlock stared at Aziraphale for a moment. “Why do you have wings?”

“What wings?” said Aziraphale, folding them. She looked over at Crowley, and her expression said that the weight of the absolutely enormous mess they’d made was just beginning to settle upon her. “Oh dear.”

“Where’s Ursula?” said Crowley.

“She’s fine,” said Aziraphale, and saw the baby cooing peacefully in the greenhouse. “I’ve got an eye on her.”

“Right. Of course you have.”

Warlock moved stiffly up the lawn, as if trying to remember how his body worked. His dark hair stuck up in a semi-charred mohican. Crowley caught Aziraphale’s eye again, and this time Aziraphale shook her head.

“It was the only thing we could have done,” she said.

“I really don’t want to talk about it,” said Crowley.

“It was my fault. I take full responsibility.”

“Yeah, what part of ‘I don’t want to talk about it’, did you not understand?”

In the long, dark, anxious hours that followed, Aziraphale did her very best to keep those few, awful moments out of mind.

At the edge of her awareness, too ugly to entertain, was the thought that this could have all been over. No more Armageddon, no more Antichrist, no more war between Heaven and Hell. Presumably they’d go right back to the old stalemate, feeding the ducks in St. James’s Park and occasionally sneaking off together for drinks. Crowley would order tacky frou-frou drinks with suggestive names and umbrellas in them, and pretend they were her idea because she knew how much Aziraphale liked them. And then Crowley would do various unflattering alcoholic impressions of various Lords of Hell, and they’d laugh, and sigh, and eventually sober up and go about their respective days and try not to feel _too_ wistful about how much they enjoyed one another’s company. And the world would keep turning, and there would be gravad lax with dill sauce, interesting little restaurants where they knew you, and rare galley copies of _Salome_, the one where Aubrey Beardsley had spilled his coffee on the title page.

That whole, desirable world had spun before her eyes in a fraction of a second. Once it would have been the best possible outcome, but now it was beyond unthinkable. Because that was _Warlock_. She had held him in her arms as a baby. She’d watched him take his first, bandy-legged steps, his face screwed up in effort and his tiny fists clenched around Crowley’s pinky fingers. Together they had listened as his burbles and experimental shrieks turned to full-formed words, and filled his head with stories and songs. She had smiled when she heard him racing around the lawn singing ‘ra ra ra boom-de-yay, my knickers flew away’, and patched up his knees when he fell off his tricycle.

In that moment there had been only one thing she could do, and oh dear – she’d gone and done it.

“Nothing fancy,” she muttered, as she rearranged books on the shelves in a desperate attempt to keep from doing something really stupid, like packing up all her things and fleeing the scene. “Nothing that would attract attention upstairs, but oh no. You had to go and go that, didn’t you? The big one. Oh, and he also happens to be the Antichrist, so well done. You can always rely on the ninny with the flaming sword to do the wrong thing for all the right reasons. Hopeless. Absolutely bloody hopeless.”

It was only a matter of time before Heaven figured it out, and then what? Time moved differently and mysteriously in Heaven. The questions could start tomorrow, or a year from now, but they would come, and Aziraphale knew very well where they would lead. _What were you thinking? Who was the boy? What were you doing hanging around the Ambassador’s residence anyway? Oh, and by the way, we know everything, from the first time you got caught moaning over a pool jet to that time you spent a fortune on dildos and shacked up with a demon at the Savoy._

There was a knock at the door. Aziraphale flew to open it. Crowley was standing there, hair aggressively waved, glasses hiding her eyes, her lips pressed tightly together. When Aziraphale opened her mouth to speak, she held up a hand.

“Before you say anything at all,” she said. “I still don’t want to talk about it.”

Aziraphale stepped back from the door. “All right,” she said. “Then come in. And we won’t talk about it.”

Crowley took a seat at the kitchen table, and removed her glasses. Her eyes were red rimmed, and very yellow, the irises so large that they had almost swallowed the whites. Aziraphale put a hand on her shoulder, but Crowley only reached up and patted the back of her hand, a cursory touch that said she realised – as much as Aziraphale didn’t want her to, just so that she could keep pretending for a little while longer – the fathomless depth of the shit they were now in.

She poured Crowley a double scotch. Crowley swallowed it in a single belt and held out her glass for more. She drank off half of that, too, and sighed. “Have you heard anything?” she said, inclining her head towards the ceiling.

“No. Not yet. But I’m sure I will. How’s Warlock?”

“Balloons keep sticking to him,” said Crowley. “But otherwise fine, considering. Hell of a row going on up there.”

“I can imagine.” Harriet was probably incandescent, but at least she would never know how much worse it could have been. Oh, and one day she would also discover that her newborn son had been switched at birth with the Antichrist, and that the child she’d raised and loved for eleven years was going to bring about the apocalypse. Miracle or not, whatever Aziraphale had done or not done, someone was going to end up getting terribly hurt. It was like one of those trolley problems that philosophers came up with as excuse to carry on drinking late into the night, except instead of five people tied to one of the tracks there were seven and a half billion.

Crowley put down her drink and buried her face in her hands. Her shoulders began to shake.

“Shh,” said Aziraphale, running a hand over her hair. “It’s all right.”

“It’s not all right. It’s fucked. Everything is fucked.”

It was, and Aziraphale had fucked it. “I know,” she said. “But you love that child. No, don’t look at me like that. You do.”

And there was the problem. They were supposed to be moving the humans around like pawns on a chess board, two celestial beings playing an ineffable game, but love had a habit of complicating things. It always had, and probably always would, but if love wasn’t a reason to make mistakes now and again, then what was the bloody point?

Oof. She could already hear herself saying these things in front of the archangels, right before they finished her off for good.

“He’s the Antichrist, Aziraphale,” Crowley said.

“I know. Believe me, I know. I’ve been trying so hard not to think about it.”

Crowley got up from the table. She cupped Aziraphale’s face in her hands and planted a well-whiskied kiss on her mouth. “You are so fucking bad at your job,” she said.

“I know,” said Aziraphale, and kissed her right back, hard and fierce, anything to make it stop feeling like it was the last time.

“I lov—” Crowley started to say, but Aziraphale shushed her.

“I thought we weren’t going to talk?” she said.

“Fine,” said Crowley, and made her _feel_ it instead. As they kissed Aziraphale saw herself through Crowley’s eyes. She saw herself drunk in the back of the bookshop, laughing over oysters in Rome, inspiring lines that Shakespeare couldn’t help but steal in London, and crying out in Crowley’s arms. So much love that it almost knocked her clean out of her corporation, and she could feel the same desire in Crowley, too. The desire to slip out of their bodies, fly off into the universe and spend the rest of their days twining around one another, slipping in and out of each other, merging and colliding as they chased each other laughing through the cosmos, rearranging the stars to spell out love letters. The vision was so intoxicating that it took her with it, and when she came back to herself they were both naked on the living room floor, black wings and white, their clothes strewn everywhere.

“We could…” said Crowley, but Aziraphale shook her head, because they couldn’t. They would spend the rest of their lives hunted by Heaven or Hell or both.

They didn’t talk for a long time, neither one wanting to be the one who opened her mouth and confirmed that it had to be over.

Eventually it was Crowley who broke the silence. “I’d better get back to the house,” she said, reaching for her skirt.

“Yes.”

“I’m probably going to get fired, by the way. Harriet’s fighting my corner, but at the end of the day I _did_ let her kid run into an electric fence.”

Aziraphale got up and slipped on a lacy peignoir, a garment that had once felt seductive but now felt as flimsy, silly and foolish as she felt in herself. She immediately longed for the security of a pair of tweeds, and for the first time since she’d changed her corporation actually longed for her usual masculine armour of undershirt, shirt, waistcoat and coat, belt and braces, and everything buttoned up to the neck and finished with a bow tie. In happier times she’d marvelled at how a feminine appearance had liberated her from her stuffy old self, but now all that newfound nerve looked like nothing more than the worst kind of recklessness. “What are we going to do?” she said, wringing her hands.

Crowley buttoned up her blouse. “I don’t know,” she said. “Rethink the Arrangement, I suppose.”

“Right. Assuming I’m even still an angel by the end of the week.”

Crowley shook her head. “What are they going to do to you? Punish you for acting like an angel? You couldn’t help it. You were just…in your nature.”

Aziraphale said nothing, not wanting to mention the other thing, the one that transformed one of her usual angelic oopsies into a catastrophe that would bring about the end of the world. Would Heaven know? God would know, because God knew everything, but to say the Lord worked in mysterious ways was the ultimate understatement. The Lord worked in ways that would make your nose and your brain bleed if you tried to think about them for too long, and if this mess was somehow part of a divine plan then it was really putting the eff in ineffable.

Crowley combed her hair with her fingers and it fell back in neat, perfect waves. She was always using her powers to have supernaturally perfect hair. She slipped on her black snakeskin pumps and stood tall and poker straight, and once her glasses were back in place she almost looked back to normal. Almost.

“I’ve had a lovely time,” said Aziraphale, because she couldn’t bring herself to say I love you. Not now, now that it was all falling apart. “You know that, don’t you?”

Crowley sighed, her shoulders drooping. “Don’t say things like that.”

“No, but if anything _happens_…”

“You’ll be all right,” said Crowley, obviously trying to sound like she wasn’t trying to convince herself. She failed. Miserably. “You’ve done worse.”

“Have I?”

“Of course you have. You gave away your sword, didn’t you? And you got away with that. Look, if the archangels come sniffing around, you just say that you were doing what you were always doing, okay? You found out I was wiling it up at the Ambassador’s residence and took it upon yourself to do some thwarting. You were trying to find out what I was doing here but you didn’t, because I’m exceptionally wily, right?”

“Right,” said Aziraphale.

“You don’t know anything about the Antichrist, you have no idea what I’m playing at, and as far as they’re concerned you were just doing your job when a small, cute human happened to drop dead in front of you, and you acted according to your nature. Like a sneeze, almost. Are they going to punish you for sneezing now?”

“Crowley, I don’t think you can compare an unauthorised resurrection to…to allergies,” said Aziraphale.

“All right. A reflex, then. Like when someone smacks you on the knee and your foot jerks upwards. You couldn’t help it. You’re just _built_ for goodness.” She reached out and gave Aziraphale’s hand a squeeze. “Just follow the script I gave you, yeah? Wiling, thwarting, blah blah blah. And you know nothing about the kid’s real parentage.”

“And what about you?”

“Well, I’m about to get fired, probably.”

“If you’re leaving, I’m leaving, too. That was what we agreed.”

“I know,” said Crowley, and opened the door. “I’ll meet you in London. Secret rendezvous and all that, like the old days.”

“St. James’s Park?”

“No, the other one.”

“The bandstand?”

Crowley sighed heavily. “No. The other _other_ one. _Try_ to keep your head on straight, angel. Please?”

“Right. Yes. Sorry.”

“All right then,” said Crowley, and stepped outside. She lingered on the doorstep for a moment, and Aziraphale burned to say it, the thing they didn’t dare say, but how could she now, now that she’d put them both in so much danger? If she really loved Crowley she would have been more careful, but instead she’d been sloppy, and stupid. She’d been swept up in the thrill of the affair, a word she’d hugged to her dizzy, foolish heart as often as Emma Bovary must have done, and look where that had got her. Crowley was right. Not all love stories had happy endings. Some of them ended in star-crossed suicides, poisoned deathbeds, and literal trainwrecks.

“Good luck,” said Crowley, which would have to do, under the circumstances.

“And you,” said Aziraphale. Her eyes stung as she closed the door and went back into the house.

There was a note on the kitchen table. It hadn’t been there before. On the page was a winged letterhead, and in neat purple ink capitals it said YOUR BOOKSHOP APPEARS TO BE CLOSED…?

“Fuck,” said Aziraphale, and trudged upstairs.

She dressed quickly and reappeared in London; it didn’t do to keep an archangel waiting. Gabriel was waiting outside the bookshop, tapping an Italian-loafered foot. When he entered the shop his dove grey cashmere overcoat brushed against a pile of books that hadn’t been dusted for almost five full years. He frowned and brushed it off. “Soooo…” he said, glancing around the shop. “What’s going on with you, Aziraphale?”

Aziraphale sighed and scrambled to fake contrition. She had hoped to have more time to rehearse this. “You’re here about the resurrection, I suppose?” she said.

“Yup,” said Gabriel. “It’s a biggie.”

“Yes. I’m aware.”

He ran his fingertip along the edge of a bookshelf and looked at it as though he’d never seen dust before. “Upstairs likes to keep these things quiet for a reason, you know. People start rising from the dead and then they’re gonna start getting _expectations_. It’s a slippery slope. You start with a rainbow – perfectly explainable meteorological phenomenon – and then they start getting greedy. Expecting us to part the Red Sea and things. Start demanding proof of divine governance, and we can’t have that.”

“Well, no,” said Aziraphale. “It flies in the face of faith.”

“Exactly,” said Gabriel, with a wide, white smile, which was not so much a smile as an unpleasant reminder of just how many teeth he had. “This is the problem. Without faith, where are we?”

“I know. I’m very sorry. It was just…a reflex, I suppose.”

“A reflex?”

“Sort of like a sneeze,” said Aziraphale. Gabriel continued to look baffled. Had he ever sneezed? “I couldn’t simply stand there and do nothing,” said Aziraphale. “I know full well that’s exactly what I was _supposed_ to do, but I’m afraid my nature rather got the better of me.”

Gabriel rolled Elizabeth Taylor’s eyes and sighed. “What were you doing at the Ambassador’s residence anyway?”

“Oh, you know.” Stick to the script. “The usual. Thwarting.”

“The demon Crowley?”

Aziraphale nodded.

“What was he doing there?” said Gabriel.

“No idea,” said Aziraphale. “That’s what I’ve been trying to find out. Undercover, you know?”

Gabriel frowned and looked her up and down. “Yeah. I guess.” The frown deepened. “Did you do something different with your hair?”

“I’m a woman,” said Aziraphale.

“Ah. So you are.” Gabriel nodded, giving her the once over in a Dowling sort of way that made her strangely and suddenly inclined to punch him in the face. “Suits you.”

“Thank you.”

Gabriel paused for a moment, then adopted what was presumably his idea of an expression of regret. He wasn’t good at human expressions, and frequently came off as disconnected and aggressively friendly, like a politician who was trying – and failing – to hide how much he secretly despised his own electorate. “Well,” he said. “I guess you know what happens now.”

“Yes,” said Aziraphale, fully expecting to be dragged up to Heaven, cross-examined by the other archangels, and then stuffed into the incinerator.

“Sorry to do this to you, but them’s the rules, Aziraphale.”

Gabriel nodded his head at something behind her. With her stomach in freefall, Aziraphale looked over her shoulder and almost fainted on the spot from sheer relief. There was a pile of paperwork on the table. No, not a pile. A mountain. A Matterhorn of celestial bureaucracy, reaching halfway to the bookshop’s ceiling. “Oh,” she said. “Oh dear.”

“In triplicate, I’m afraid,” said Gabriel. “Try to keep a lid on it next time, huh?”

“Of course,” said Aziraphale, trying to sound suitably chastised. Not that this was entirely getting off easy. She knew very well that every single form she had to fill out would be loaded with loopholes, clauses, and semi-clauses, most of which had been designed with the purpose of making her reveal or incriminate herself in some way.

“I know it’s hard for you sometimes, but if someone’s dead, leave them that way. I know you have a soft spot for humans, and that’s adorable, but try to keep in mind that they die. A lot. It’s natural for them. They’ve been doing it forever and they’re used to it. There’s nothing _you_ can do about it. It’s not your department, and Processing don’t need the headache, okay?”

“Absolutely,” said Aziraphale. She felt sweat run down between her shoulder blades. “I’m very sorry. It won’t happen again.”

“It had better not. You keep pulling this shit, you’re gonna be doing paperwork until doomsday.” Gabriel nodded to the stack, and headed for the door. “You’d better make a start.”

“Yes. I will. Thank you. Have a nice day. Mind how you go, now.” The words were falling out of her now, a frenzied gabble of pleasantries that she was sure revealed just how much she had just got away with. She locked the door behind him and caught sight of herself in the old, speckled Georgian mirror opposite. She looked hot and mad and frightened, and she no longer saw the face of the woman Crowley loved. All she saw was a terrible, terrible mistake.


	7. Trollied

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been a while again. It's been...a month, hasn't it? Take very good care of yourselves, and of each other.

The restaurant at the British Museum was busy, as usual, and it took a moment for Crowley to find Aziraphale.

Not least because Aziraphale had gone and changed shape. The bouncy platinum curls were cropped once more. The curves had disappeared. No more fabulous boobs, just the slightly pudgy front of that ancient velveteen waistcoat that she – or rather he – clung to like a security blanket. He was buttoned up to the neck once more, the ludicrous layers of undershirt, shirt, waistcoat and coat all secured with a tartan bow tie. He was eating a Bakewell tart and pretending to be very interested in a book, but his right knee was jiggling nervously, baring an Argyle sock that Crowley knew just had to be supported by the unsexiest garments ever manufactured by humankind: sock suspenders.

She remembered the way Aziraphale’s lacy stocking tops used to hold the shape of her plump thighs when she took them off, and something shrieked inside her. She wanted to stomp over there, tear off that bow tie and demand to know what the hell Aziraphale was playing at, because this felt like a line had been drawn somewhere. One that said Crowley was to stay firmly on the other side of it.

Crowley took a deep breath and headed towards the table. Aziraphale didn’t look up from the book – another thing from the old days – and Crowley slid into the chair opposite, feigning nonchalance in a way that would have been deeply conspicuous to anybody watching. “So,” she said, her mouth so dry that she almost had to unstick her tongue from the back of her teeth before speaking. “How’d it go?”

Aziraphale glanced furtively around before removing his glasses and closing the book. “Not good,” he said, nudging a welcome glass of red wine in Crowley’s direction. “There was paperwork. A _lot_ of paperwork.”

“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” said Crowley. Aziraphale had intimated that there were worse things that could happen to an angel besides Falling.

“No. Not good. Not good at all. It’s stacked up to the ceiling, and every page, every paragraph, every single bloody line is carefully designed to trip me up and incriminate myself in some way.”

“Need any help?”

“Why?” said Aziraphale, rather waspishly. “Do you have a match and a can of petrol?”

Crowley frowned. “Yeah,” she said. “Always.”

She sampled the indifferent wine, searching for ways to say what came next without feeling as ludicrously hurt as she really was. Ludicrously because she had to have – on some level, no matter how stupid love had made her – known how this would have to end. There was no happily ever after for the likes of them, just an inevitable return to the usual cloak and dagger. Even if their plan paid off and they did manage to prevent Armageddon, what then? They would still be answerable to their opposite head offices. They would still be – no matter how much Crowley wanted to believe otherwise – on opposite sides. Good and evil, light and dark, Heaven and Hell.

“What’s with the…corporation?” she said, gesturing with her wine glass.

“Gabriel noticed.”

“Noticed what?”

“This,” said Aziraphale. “Me. The…breasts.”

“What? So you changed back? Isn’t that going to look a bit suspicious?”

“I don’t know. I may have panicked a bit. This is Gabriel we’re talking about. You know how he is. He’s…you know…”

“What?” said Crowley. “Thicker than a doorstop sandwich composed of two short planks and the Complete Works of Ayn Rand?”

“I was going to say obtuse.”

“Yeah, course you were.”

“He may be obtuse,” said Aziraphale. “But he’s not completely thick.” He sighed and looked as though he wanted to devour the rest of the Bakewell tart in one mouthful. “I think it will be much better if I don’t draw attention to myself from now on.”

“Bit late for that,” said Crowley. “You resurrected the Anti—”

“—_will_ you keep your voice down?”

Aziraphale sat back, shaken. Crowley noticed that no matter how he changed his corporation, his worried frown – with the two little dents above his eyebrows – remained exactly the same. She had kissed those dents a hundred times or more, told Aziraphale not to worry, that the plan was working. And then she’d gone and fucked it all up by running to Aziraphale for help, surely knowing what the angel would do – would _have_ to do – under the circumstances.

“I’m sorry,” she said, wanting to cry. “I should never have got you involved. I just…I panicked. When I think that all of this could have gone away – the end of the world, cancelled. If I hadn’t come running to you…”

Aziraphale shook his head. “He’s a _little boy_, Crowley.”

Crowley swallowed hard. “I know.”

“And you love him.”

It was close to an accusation, and at one time in their lives it might have been. But not now. The tears spilled out behind Crowley’s glasses. “I love _you_,” she said.

Aziraphale looked close to tears himself. “Please don’t do this,” he said. “Not here. Not now.”

“Then when?” said Crowley, leaning so intensely across the table that Aziraphale reared back a little. And that hurt. Oh shit, why did that hurt _so_ much? “I can’t do this anymore, Aziraphale. Not now that I know what it’s like to have you. Let’s just…let’s just…_go_. It’s a big universe. We could go anywhere. Nothing else matters. If love doesn’t matter, then what does?”

She almost did it. Almost. For a second it was as though she could see through the wall of Aziraphale’s altered corporation and into the eyes of the woman she loved. And who loved her back, even if she was too stubborn and cowardly to fucking say it. So close, but then Aziraphale pursed his lips and did that tiny shake of the head that meant he’d been thinking too long and too hard.

“Have you ever heard of the trolley problem?” he said.

“What?” said Crowley. “The one where you’re off yours? Yes, I have. I’ve had that particular problem for six thousand years now.”

“No, it’s a philosophical argument…”

Crowley groaned loud enough to draw stares from other diners.

“…in which it posits that one is the driver of an out of control tram car, or trolley. The brakes don’t work, and the only control that does work is the lever that controls direction.”

“There had better be a _very_ good point to this,” said Crowley, turning the remainder of her wine into whiskey.

“The point,” said Aziraphale. “Is that the trolley is racing towards a fork in the tracks. On one fork of the track, there is a person tied to the rails, a person who will certainly be killed if the trolley drives over them. But on the other fork, there are _five_ people in the same situation. Five…or over seven billion. Do you see my point now?”

It took Crowley a minute, but she did. “Are you saying you pulled the lever in the wrong direction?”

“I’m saying I have a moral obligation to see this through.”

She shook her head. “Wait, you’re not saying you’re going to try and…correct your mistake, are you?”

Aziraphale stared at her. “Of course not! I couldn’t. I’m not even sure if I _could_. And he’s a dear little boy, for all his…you know. Unfortunate lineage.” He sighed and looked terribly tired all of a sudden. “But you must know what I’m saying, Crowley. I can’t just walk away from this. And I don’t think you can, either. Deep down, I don’t believe you’re that selfish.”

“So what are you saying? What do you propose we do?”

“What we always do. What we were doing in the first place before we got…distracted.”

“Disstracted?” said Crowley, unable to believe what she was hearing. “Is that what you call it? I made you _sssquirt_.”

“Will you keep your voice down? This isn’t about us. This is about seven billion people and _him_. I know I once said that the world would probably be far better off being saved by people less prone to getting pissed at lunchtime than me, but here I am. Here _we_ are. Like it or not, we’re driving this bloody trolley. So we’ll have to alter our disguises and change our cover stories, but we’ll keep doing what we’re doing because it works.”

“Works?”

“Crowley, he’s ordinary. The boy is normal. Yes, he’s dreadful and delightful by turns, but all human children are. Have you been so fixated on other matters that it hasn’t even occurred to you that our plan is _working_?”

“Other matters?” said Crowley. “You mean us?”

Aziraphale sighed. “Yes. Us.”

“And? What about us?”

There was a long, long pause. Aziraphale ran his tongue over his lips, and something inside Crowley braced, as if for impact. “I told you,” Aziraphale said. “It’s much better if I don’t draw attention to myself from now on.”

“Don’t, angel. Don’t do this…”

“…I won’t deny that I’ve had a lovely time…”

“…please…”

“…_stop it_,” said Aziraphale. “For goodness’ sake. Can’t you see how risky this is? We lost our damned minds back there in Sussex. We…we…fff…”

“Don’t say fraternized,” said Crowley. “Don’t you _dare_ say fraternized.”

“Fucked,” said Aziraphale, startling her. She’d never heard the angel swear before in this corporation, for all sweet Fanny Fell could curse up a blue streak in the bedroom. “I was going to say fucked.” He leaned closer, cheeks blazing. “Have you any idea what our respective head offices would do to us if it got out that you’d spread me out stark naked on a kitchen table and penetrated me with a carrot?”

“Why does it always keep coming back to the carrot?”

“Fine. Or any of the other times, then,” said Aziraphale. “That time you made me spank you with the back of the jam spoon just to see if you liked it. Or that entire week of unrestrained fornication at the Savoy. The…the toe job in the Italian restaurant.”

“You looked so beautiful in that dress,” said Crowley, too desperate to even feel ashamed of how hard she was pleading now. She waved a hand at the old, familiar corporation. “Why are you…this? You could at least change back. I already miss your boobs.”

Aziraphale shook his head. “_No,_ Crowley. I think it’s better if we keep temptation out of reach, don’t you?”

“Temptation is never out of reach,” said Crowley. “Not if you really want it.”

Another head shake. The bad head shake. The thinky one.

“Say it,” said Crowley, even though she knew it was useless. “Please. I just want to hear you say it. Just once. Before it has to be over.”

“I…I can’t. It’s too risky. I’ve said too much already.”

“Once. Come on, angel. Just once. It’s not like you to be cruel.”

“I’m not being cruel,” said Aziraphale, eyes filling with tears. “I’m being cautious. And not just for my own sake.”

Crowley sprung up, and knocked over her chair. It crashed on the hard marble floor, and people were watching, but it felt good to draw their gaze, if only to spite Aziraphale. “Fuck you,” she said. “You had more balls when you were a woman.”

* * *

You didn’t lose a woman like Frances Fell without feeling it, and Crowley had been feeling it – among other things – for some time. She had burned out the motors on three vibrators now, and had been staring at the charging light on the clitsucker for far too long. In desperation, she found herself eyeballing an almost empty bottle of Talisker on the bedside table, but decided that was taking her love of a good single malt a little too far and too literally. She also found herself wondering how the bottle had emptied so quickly.

“Must have another one somewhere,” she said, rolling out of the rumpled bed and prowling into the living room.

Except that bottle – the one that she could have sworn she hadn’t even opened – was completely empty, and she was shaken to discover that her drinks cabinet was now down to unfortunate liqueurs like Tia Maria and Drambuie, and an unopened bottle of expired pina colada mix that she’d bought on the off chance that one day Aziraphale would pop in and be in the mood to drink something with a decorative umbrella in it.

But of course, Aziraphale hadn’t. She was still drifting around Soho being stubborn, not to mention male.

Crowley sighed and reached for the Tia Maria. The houseplants quivered. They had been getting it in the neck a lot, lately, and they were very, very sick of listening to the Velvet Underground. Crowley passed them and moved on into the kitchen, and they exhaled as one. “What even is Tia Maria?” she muttered, as she rummaged for ice. “And why is it called ‘Aunt Mary’ in Spanish? More to the point, how the fuck did it get in my cocktail cabinet?”

She caught sight of herself in the impossibly shiny cooker hood. She was not an alluring vision. Her hair was greasy and all flattened at the back from lying in bed for days, her lips were pale and she was wearing nothing but an old Judas Priest t-shirt* that barely covered her bum. She lit a cigarette and the lighter almost exploded in a ball of flame: the hyperventilating houseplants had raised the oxygen content of the flat to the point where naked flames could cause serious mischief.

“Maybe I got it for her,” she said, sipping the liqueur. Yep, definitely time for a much needed booze run. “Does she like this? I don’t fucking know.” Crowley drained the glass and refilled it. “Terrible,” she said, addressing herself to a small succulent on the windowsill. It began to silently pray that it wasn’t going to have to listen to _Linger In Your Pale Blue Eyes_ again. “That’s the trouble with Good. It has no taste. Well, in theory.” Aziraphale had tasted pretty damn good – salt, peaches, and lipstick. “I mean, I wouldn’t have gone with an A-line skirt on those hips myself, but once you got her out of the tweeds…” Crowley sighed again. She refilled the glass, thinking of Aziraphale in St. James’s Park, smiling while the wind stuck her hair to her lipstick and blew her wide, white skirts against her rounded thighs. Femininity had liberated her, so of course she’d retreated from it.

“She glowed some nights,” Crowley told the succulent. “Literally. Lit up like Christmas. Laughed like I’ve never seen her laugh before, like she didn’t have a care in the world. Like Heaven wasn’t watching over her shoulder. Like it was just her and me, against…against the end of the world.” She stubbed out her cigarette in the sink and reached for the plant. “I’m sorry about this,” she said, turning on the garbage disposal. “But you’ve heard too much. I can’t risk you telling the others.”

The Tia Maria wasn’t doing it for her, so she put on some underwear, slapped on some lipstick and a black Valentino wrap coat and headed for the Tesco Metro in St. James’s. She was high-heeling her way towards the booze aisle when her phone rang.

Aziraphale.

Crowley adjusted her bug-eye sunglasses and wiped a smear of maroon lipstick from her teeth before answering the phone. “Yep?”

“It’s me,” said Aziraphale.

“Yeah, I know it’s you. It says so on the phone. What’s up?”

“Well, I was just…well…you know…”

“No,” said Crowley, adding a couple of bottles of Courvoisier to the shopping trolley. “And by the masculine sound of your voice I’m guessing this isn’t one of those fun phone calls where you offer to come over to mine and sit on my face.”

Aziraphale exhaled a long breath. “I can’t say I ever recall making that kind of offer.”

“No, I know. You’ve never even been to my place. Do you like Tia Maria, by the way?”

“Tia M…no, never mind. What’s that clanking noise?”

“Shopping,” said Crowley, loading vodka into the trolley. “I’m shopping. In Tesco.”

“What for?”

“Liquid refreshments.”

“Oh dear,” said Aziraphale.

“Like you’re in any position to judge,” said Crowley. “You own the only bookshop in London with a _wine cellar_.”

“You sound drunk. Are you drunk?”

“Nah. I’m only heavily impaired. I’m aiming for ‘passed out and drooling.’”

Aziraphale sighed. “Crowley, are you all right? You still sound very…female.”

There was no easy way to say ‘Since we broke up I’ve become a chronic masturbator, and I’ve always found you get much more mileage out of a vulva’, so Crowley didn’t. “You know me,” she said. “Boy, girl, snake – I’m easy.”

“All right. Well, as long as you’re okay. You’re not going to…do anything rash, are you?”

“Rash?” Crowley clomped towards the checkout, bottles rattling. “What the hell do you think I’m going to do?”

“I don’t know. You do have a tendency to hibernate.”

Crowley rolled her eyes and started to unload the trolley. The checkout girl blinked, but pointedly said nothing. “I overslept,” said Crowley.

“You were unconscious for almost half of the nineteenth century. You completely missed out on music hall. _And_ Gilbert and Sullivan.”

“Yeah, I know.” Crowley handed a very black credit card to the cashier. “Gilbert and Sullivan were two of the fucking reasons why I chose to take a nap in the first place. Hang on.”

The girl at the checkout was blinking again, mainly because Crowley’s credit card was so black that it appeared to consume all light sources around it. The effect tended to be a bit rough on the human mind. “Having a party?” she said, with a nervous smile.

“No,” said Crowley, holding her phone to her chest. “I’m a massive alcoholic.”

The girl nodded. “Well, the first step is admitting that you have a problem,” she said. “You know, help _is_ available. I think I had a card here somewhere…”

“Who are you talking to?” said Aziraphale.

Crowley returned the phone to her ear. “I told you, I’m at Tesco’s. Oh, and there’s a girl here. Very much your type. Want me to give her your number?”

“Uh…” said the girl.

“It’s all right,” Crowley told her, glasses sliding down her nose, too fast for her to realise that she had a bad case of reptile eyes right now. Alcohol always had that effect on her. “It’s not a sex thing. It’s more to do with the state of your immortal soul.”

“Right,” said the cashier, recoiling. “_Can_ it be a sex thing, please? Because somehow that’s the less creepy option right now.”

“Are you trying to pick that girl up?” said Aziraphale.

“What’s it to you if I am?” said Crowley, stomping to the end of the checkout and starting to load the bottles into a cardboard wine carrier. “You dumped me.”

“I did not _dump_ you…”

“You did. You sat there in the café at the British Museum with a face like an arseache and wouldn’t even do me the basic courtesy of admitting that you loved me…”

“…Crowley, for God’s sake. I know you’re hurt, and I’m sorry. I really am, but could you at least attempt to be discreet, instead of blasting our business all over Tesco? It’s all very well for you. You’ll probably get some kind of revolting commendation for corrupting one of the heavenly host with a winter vegetable, but could you please take a moment out of your current pity party to spare a thought as to what _my_ side might do to _me_? Never mind Falling. They’ll probably just poke me straight into the incinerator.”

Crowley took back her credit card and rattled off towards the exit. “Incinerator?” she said. “When did they get an incinerator?”

“Shortly after discovering that chucking the likes of you downstairs was actually excellent recruiting policy for Hell.”

Even Crowley managed a smile at that one. “Right. Fine,” she said. “I won’t mention the L word again. Happy?”

“No. Not really.”

“Yeah, well. That makes two of us, doesn’t it?” said Crowley, and hung up, narrowly avoiding a middle-aged man who had been gazing at her with unabashed love in his eyes. The trouble with this corporation was that it made her a long-legged redhead with a vintage car, and – presently – a shopping trolley full of booze. Which ticked off a fair few fantasy boxes in many men’s eyes. “Fuck off, I’m a lesbian,” she said, realising she’d inadvertently ticked yet another box for Captain Perv over there. She clattered off into a small pool of darkness between the buildings, and for once wasn’t the worst thing in that particular dark place.

Usually she smelled things like him coming, but Hastur wasn’t one of Hell’s greatest lurkers for nothing. “Oh, holy mother of God,” she said, as he melted out of the shadows.

“Well,” said Hastur. “There’s no need for _that_ kind of language.”

“Sorry,” said Crowley.

“Up to nefarious purposes, are we?”

“Absolutely. Always.” She sagged against the side of the shopping trolley. “We’re not doing Deeds of the Day, are we? Please don’t say we’re doing Deeds of the Day, because I’m really pissed, and actually quite tired.”

Hastur blinked insect-black eyes, and lit a damp roll-up with a handily conjured flicker of hellfire. “How’s the boy, Crowley?” he said.

“The boy?”

“Our Master’s Son,” said Hastur. As always, he looked and smelled as though he’d spent the last six months sleeping under a bridge, but a Duke of Hell was still a Duke of Hell. Crowley had personally watched him laugh as he impaled a series of lawyers on spikes like he was making shish kebabs at a carefree summer barbecue. And he could imbue the words _Our Master’s Son_ with all the appropriate dread they demanded.

“Oh. Him,” said Crowley, squashing down thoughts of how sweet the son of Satan had been when you finally got him properly winded and down to sleep. He’d made such darling little snores. “Yeah. Fine. Well, not fine. You know.” Oh shit. Hastur was staring at her. No, not _at_ her. _Into_ her. Which was never pleasant. “Awful. Shocking. He picks his nose and sticks the bogeys under the edge of the table. _And_ he’s learned to swear. Years ahead of his classmates. They still think bum, poo and toilets are rude words, but our boy’s straight out of the gate with fuck. He’s a good kid. Well, a bad kid, obviously.”

Hastur’s black eyes gave back nothing, except for two small reflections of a very nervous Crowley. “Has he killed any small animals yet?”

“Yes. Yeah. So many. All the small animals. He’s a hazard to pets.” In the wake of Nanny’s disappearance, the Dowlings had bought Warlock a kitten named Custard. It slept on the end of his bed every night. “He’ll be moving onto people soon, I’m sure.”

“Are you sure, Crowley?”

“Very. Very sure. You can’t rush these things, you know. It’s like potty training. If you push them into it too young they end up with anxiety.”

“Anxiety?” said Hastur, who probably only understood anxiety as a thing that he caused.

“Toilet anxiety, murder anxiety,” said Crowley. “It’s all the same thing, really. And you don’t want our master’s son to end up with a complex, do you?”

Hastur lurked closer. “If he does, it won’t be my fault, will it?” he said, grabbing two dirty fists full of Crowley’s lapels. “It’ll be _yours_.”

“_Don’t touch me,_” Crowley said, and Hastur released her. She recoiled, and quickly scrambled to remedy her mistake. “Pardon me, Your Disgrace…but this coat _is_ Valentino.”

Hastur curled his lip. “Italian?”

“Er…_sì_?”

“Flash bastard.” Hastur looked her up and down. “Or bitch. What are you today, anyway?”

“Just me,” said Crowley, hoping that it didn’t show on her face that she’d done a great many things lately that – if she really had to be honest with herself – fell squarely into the category of _good_. Like love. That was a big one, as good things went. Maybe the biggest. “Same old Crowley. Non-gender specific, but definitely evil. Very evil.”

The Duke of Hell harrumphed and vanished back into the dark. Crowley grabbed her shopping trolley and tottered off, hoping that the rattle of the bottles masked the wild pounding of her heart. For a moment there, when Hastur had been staring into her, she had been afraid that those black, dead eyes could see all the way into her soul. And Crowley’s soul was supposed to be a small, hard, shrivelled thing, not entirely unlike a lump of elderly tar. It definitely wasn’t supposed to be a place where, despite all her alcoholic efforts to turn off light and hope in there, the lights still blazed bright whenever she remembered what it felt like to lie in the warm arms of an angel.

And if Hell could see…if Hell could see how Crowley wanted to cry with happiness every time Aziraphale rolled over in bed at night and pushed her thigh between hers. If they ever, ever found out how Crowley had cherished every inch of her…

God, she hated it when Aziraphale was right.

* * *

Mr Cortese had no style.

He wore a pilled old cricket sweater and a tartan tie, both of which were frequently decorated with crumbs. Looking at him, nobody would have ever suspected that he was an angel, or that he’d once been a beautiful, full-bodied woman who had nightly spread her broad, lovely thighs and cheerfully invited Crowley to find her g-spot. With her tongue.

He was a nervous little man, who frowned a lot, twisted the gold signet ring on his pinkie finger until the skin was raw, and who had an unholy tendency to stress eat. As Warlock grew, so did Mr Cortese, only in a different direction. The pad of extra flesh under his chin was threatening to turn into a new chin all of its own, and his cricket sweater was getting stretched out, and it was depressing to see, because there was something sad about this new flesh. Aziraphale had gained weight before, but she’d had such a damn good time doing so that there was something inherently cheerful about her larger curves. She had always swung her roomy hips a little harder whenever _Fat Bottomed Girls_ got to that line about Big Fat Fanny, making Crowley turn into a such a naughty nanny every time.

But this? This wasn’t so much fun, because all that new pudge was the product of comfort eating, and there was nothing either of them could do to address the discomfort at the source. While engaged as private tutors to the Antichrist, they had both – Mr Harrison and Mr Cortese – slid back into old, bad habits.

Today – when they met on the bench in the back garden of the Ambassador’s London residence – Mr Cortese was eating a cheese and tomato sandwich. He had a banana on the side, which was different, because usually he had a cream cake of some kind. He was particularly partial to a vanilla slice.

“What happened to your cake?” said Mr Harrison, who was tall and terribly stylish.

“My waistband’s getting tight.” Mr Cortese waved a hand at him. “Could you _not_ smoke while I’m eating?”

“Why? Do you want one?”

Mr Cortese sniffed and hesitated. “Yes,” he said.

“Aw. Rough lesson?”

“Awful. He has no interest in learning about Frederick Douglass and is far more interested in Erszebet Bathory. Your influence, I presume?”

Mr Harrison shrugged. “His mother wanted more women in the curriculum, and I happen to agree with her,” he said, and held up two fingers. “Girl Power, and all that.”

“Girl Power? Did you somehow miss the part where Erszebet Bathory’s many, many victims were also female?”

“That’s pop feminism, baby. You don’t have to look into these things too closely.”

“Ugh,” said Mr Cortese, and transformed his banana into a cream bun, one of those long, split ones with the cream piped inside the cut length.

“Poor angel,” said Crowley. “Are you eating your feelings?”

“I don’t have feelings,” said Aziraphale, through a mouthful of cheese and tomato sandwich.

“You do. You have a great many feelings.” Crowley slithered down the bench. “You probably need to blow off some steam.”

“Stop it.”

“I’m just _saying_. You need an outlet. Apocalypses are stressful.”

“_You’re_ stressful,” said Aziraphale. “And quite frankly I think it’s downright tasteless the way you insist on trying to tempt me.”

“I can’t help that,” said Crowley, lighting another cigarette. “Temptation is tasteless, by its very nature. Temptation is like…like the neon sign over the door of a peep show. Or a strip club. Big light up letters saying YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO. Remember Soho in the twentieth century? It’s a lot like that – titties, neon, uncontrollable sexual urges.”

“Yes, I remember,” said Aziraphale.

Crowley watched him take his frustrations out on the remainder of the cheese sandwich. Poor thing had retreated into vague babbles about picnics and dinner at the Ritz, but that had been BF – Before Franny. Before Femininity. Before Frilly knickers, and all the ways they could end up on the bedroom floor.

“Come on, angel,” he said. “We’ve got a difficult job to do here, and you deserve a break.”

“No.”

“Dirty weekend or something. You could slip into something a little more feminine. Dust off the lingerie collection.”

“_Crowley_…”

“Come _oooon_. I know you want it. Wine. Dinner. Cunnilingus.”

“You know I can’t,” said Aziraphale, licking the cream from the bun in a way that was appropriately obscene.

Crowley whimpered inwardly and pressed his knees together. “It’s been five years. If they knew about us they’d have done something to us by now.”

“Exactly,” said Aziraphale. “We got away with it, Crowley. Why do you always have to keep pushing our luck?”

“You know why.”

Aziraphale sighed. “Please don’t start that again.”

“How can I start again when I never fucking stopped?” said Crowley, but the angel was already on the move, gathering up the remains of his lunch and heading back up the length of the narrow city garden towards the house.

Crowley followed. “Say it,” he said.

“No.”

“_Say it._ Just once.”

“I can’t,” said Aziraphale, as they slipped into the narrow passage between the kitchen wall and the garden.

Crowley grabbed a handful of pilled cricket sweater and pulled. “You can,” he said, pushing the angel up against the garden wall. “I did.”

Aziraphale looked as though he was about to cry. “Because you’re braver than me,” he said. “You’ve always been a lot braver than me.”

“You’re a lot braver than you think you are,” said Crowley. “Just say it, Aziraphale. Just once. Just have the guts to tell me that you—”

Aziraphale cut him off with a kiss. A long, hard, greedy kiss that tasted of sugar, cream, and that tell-tale whiff of cordite.

“—love me,” Crowley finished, and kissed him right back.

Next thing he knew his back was against the kitchen wall. His glasses were on top of his head and his mouth – for the first time in far too long – was full of angel tongue. Aziraphale, ever the sexy little glutton, moaned into the kiss. “You taste like an ashtray,” he complained, and went on kissing Crowley anyway.

Things were just about to get really interesting when the kitchen door opened and Dowling looked out. “Oh. Shit. Sorry,” he said.

Aziraphale reluctantly released Crowley. “It’s not what it looks like,” he said.

The ambassador narrowed his eyes. Like a lot of men he had been fairly open minded – if not openly enthusiastic – about the notion of the confusingly sexy satanic nanny getting hardcore sapphic with the winsome gardener, but Crowley had a feeling that a good old boy like Dowling would not be quite so forgiving of a spot of tutor-on-tutor manlove.

“Huh. This is weird,” Dowling said.

Aziraphale licked his lips and smoothed down the front of his deplorable sweater. “It won’t happen again,” he said.

“Oh,” said Dowling. “It’s none of my business what you guys get up to.” He frowned very hard, as though the inside of his skull was itching and he was attempting to scratch it with the motion of his eyebrows. “It’s just…déjà vu. That’s all.”

He looked back and forth between them, the itch inside his head apparently still unscratched, and went back inside. Aziraphale sighed. “See?” he said. “Even that absolute muttonhead is on the verge of discerning that he’s seen all of this before. We can’t afford to do this again, Crowley.”

“I love you,” said Crowley. That brief taste of angel had made him reckless all over again, and there was a faint breath of stardust in the air. “And you can’t stop me from saying it. Or feeling it.” He put his hand against the wall, blocking Aziraphale’s way. “I’ve tried not to. I really have.”

In the shade of the passageway Aziraphale’s eyes were the same soft, grey-blue that Miss Fell’s had been on lazy summer evenings, when the gin had made her wistful and a little bit lovey-dovey. And he was still her – no matter how much he tried to hide it, under bad sweaters and fresh pudge. The eyes were the same, the heart was the same, the whole quivering soul was the same. Crowley could smell it, the lingering celestial scent that said that no matter how much Aziraphale protested, she was still a being of love, vibrating at the perfect frequency of that which was her element.

Aziraphale swallowed hard, and sighed again. “Try harder,” he said, and ducked under Crowley’s arm and away.

Crowley narrowly resisted the urge to punch the wall, then went upstairs in a bad mood. Warlock had finished his lunch and was now amusing himself with some brightly coloured video game. Crowley plucked it from his fingers as he walked by. “Enough of that,” he said. “Come on. Feet off the table. We’re doing Vlad Tepes this afternoon.”

Warlock made various grumbling noises. “Is that the Vlad the Impaler?”

“That’s him. Lots of blood and guts. Your favourite.”

“Nrrr…” said Warlock, rolling his eyes. He was only ten, but lately seemed to be practising extra hard for the oncoming turbulence of adolescence.

“What?” said Crowley. “You _like_ blood and guts. You do.” In desperation he reached for a threat he knew would land. “What do you want, then? Do you want to read about someone boring and do-goody like William Wilberforce?”

“Um, no.”

“Well, then. What’s the matter?”

Warlock sighed hard enough to lift the forelock of brown hair that fell over his eyes. It was – as Crowley had observed in more anxious moments – an awful lot like Harriet’s. “Is there anyone in history who’s like…normal?” Warlock said.

“Normal?”

“Yeah. Normal. They do bad things _and_ good things, like normal people. Not like, all bad or all good _all_ the time. Most people do both. My mom says it’s called New Aunts or something.”

“Nuance,” said Crowley.

“Yeah, that,” said Warlock. “Where are the New Aunts? You always be _all_ bad _all_ the time. It would get boring.”

“You’re telling me that you’re bored of impalements?” said Crowley. “Bored of witch trials? Bored of _Jack the Ripper_?”

“Yes,” said Warlock. “It gets a whole lot less exciting when you have to hear about horrible sh…stuff all the time. And the same goes for all the boring-ass good people in Mr Cortese’s lessons. Isn’t there anyone who’s like…just…in the middle?”

Well, there’s you, Crowley thought, but didn’t say. He went on with the lesson about Vlad Tepes just the same, but his mind kept running along the same old track, and kept on running long after the lesson was over and he was alone in the school room.

There was Heaven and Hell and then there was them in the middle. Human beings, knowing the difference between good and evil, and having the choice between them. And the kid was absolutely right. Humanity was a lot more interesting for that, not that anyone was ever thanking Crowley for being the one who set that whole Free Will thing into motion in the first place. Extremes _were_ boring, which is why it hadn’t been the hardest thing in the world to persuade Aziraphale to come along on this ride in the first place. It was this – a world where you found yourself enjoying the music of Wagner and Orff, and yet simultaneously wandering if you should, because by all accounts they were a pair of irredeemable Nazi bastards – or a world of harps, celestial harmonies, and an eternal landscape of uninterrupted goodness with less flavour and texture than a plate of runny, unseasoned mashed potatoes.

Same thing with Hell. A lot of humans liked evil as a seasoning. Most of them knew they were supposed to be good and kind and thoughtful towards others, but every now again life needed the spice of doing something wrong, like shoplifting, or farting quietly in a confined space with others. They liked true crime podcasts and horror movies, because hearing about the awful deeds of others added a little spice to their lives. On the other hand, you could no more sit down to a dinner that was _all_ spice – an inedible heaped serving of chilli powder – any more than you could contemplate Heaven’s runny mashed potatoes without a certain degree of nausea. Again, Warlock was right. Unalloyed, uninterrupted evil _was_ boring and indigestible, same as anything else that went on for far too long, and there was no definition of ‘far too long’ quite like forever.

There was a high, piercing shriek from outside, and Crowley glanced out of the window. It was Ursula Dowling, who had somehow braced her small body against the walls of the slide of the children’s’ play equipment. She was doing her best to defy gravity, because her brother was lurking at the end of the slide, wearing a fiendish grin. “I’m gonna _get you_,” he said. Ursula shrieked again, but at the same time she was laughing, and as she tried to scramble back up the slide she lost her footing completely and slid down into Warlock’s clutches. He had recently discovered that his little sister was ticklish, and in that moment it was hard to discern which of the two kids was more aggressively normal. In attempting to influence him one way and the other, both Crowley and Aziraphale had taken it for granted that there would always be a third influence on the child – that of his human family – and that perhaps it would always be far stronger than either of theirs.

As the clock to doomsday ticked ever on, they watched Warlock carefully, and that nagging suspicion at the back of Crowley’s mind once again kept him up more nights than not. The boy was worryingly normal. He was almost eleven. Surely he was supposed to be a boiling vortex of latent satanic power by now, but so far he wasn’t taking after his father’s side of the family. Instead he was dragging his feet around Crystal Palace while Harriet attempted to interest him in what the Victorians thought that dinosaurs looked like.

“We haven’t got long,” said Crowley. “We have to do something.”

“Do what, exactly?” said Aziraphale.

“Well…it’s like you said. Trolley problem, right?”

Crowley tried to avoid the angel’s eyes, but it was difficult. When a being with an unsettling number of eyes stared at you – even if he only had two at present – you knew you were being stared at. And Aziraphale was staring. Hard.

“You failed to pull the right lever,” said Crowley. “Only this time you get a do-over.”

Oh shit. The stare intensified. Aziraphale’s mouth fell slightly open.

“Stop looking at me like I’m a monster,” said Crowley, squirming in his seat on the park bench.

“Then stop behaving like one,” said Aziraphale. “Are you seriously suggesting that I…I rectify my previous error?”

“Well, I can’t do it, can I? I changed his nappies. We bonded.”

“I read him Beatrix Potter. I named his little sister.”

“You were the one with the trolley,” said Crowley.

Aziraphale huffed. “An entirely metaphorical trolley.”

_ The trolley’s being metaphorical didn’t stop you from breaking my fucking heart over it, did it?_ Crowley thought, and may have partially muttered, because Aziraphale said “What?” and Crowley said “Nothing,” and continued to watch Warlock, who was absorbed in drawing rude graffiti on a picture of a Victorian dinosaur.

Aziraphale watched too, and then finally spoke. “I don’t think I could do it,” he said, in a sort of pre-emptive strike. “I don’t think I’ve ever…killed anything.”

“You have,” said Crowley. “You’ve swatted flies. You’ve slaughtered greenfly. And you definitely offed a significant number of plants while you were pretending to be a buxom horticulturalist.”

“That wasn’t on purpose. And the boy is not a bloody begonia, Crowley.”

“No, he’s a time bomb. And the little red numbers on the display are rapidly running down.”

Aziraphale went quiet again, then got that searching Cold War look that often crossed his face when he was sitting around on park benches. “And what happens when they do, exactly? The numbers, I mean. The tick tick tick boom thing.”

Crowley shrugged. “I don’t exactly know.”

“You don’t know? But you delivered the boy. Well, not _delivered_ as such, but…”

“Yeah,” said Crowley, pushing his sunglasses higher up his nose and hoping his body language didn’t betray the thing that kept tingling inside his head like the beginnings of a mental cold sore. It was impossible, right? Two babies, and you swap them over. Easy peasy. Any idiot could do it, and Crowley wasn’t any idiot. He was the evil genius who had turned the M25 into a low-grade prayer wheel of evil, not that he’d got any appreciation for it. Not so much as a wahoo, but then prophets weren’t recognised in their own time. He shook his head and sighed. “Look,” he said. “I don’t know exactly what’s supposed to happen. He might suddenly go all glowy red eyes in the middle of his eleventh birthday party. Oh, and there was something to do with a hellhound.”

“A hellhound?”

“A dog. I don’t know what to tell you. I’m not far enough up the chain of command to know the exact specifics…”

Aziraphale arched both eyebrows. “Really? I thought you said you were an extremely important demon?”

“I am,” said Crowley. “I’m not a minor demon, am I? I basically set all of this in motion, didn’t I? Free will? Good and evil?”

“No,” said Aziraphale. “That was God. You just crawled upstairs and started causing mischief.”

“Yeah, well. Has it ever occurred to you that I was meant to cause mischief in the first place?”

Aziraphale rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Crowley, I have a beast of a headache already. I can really do without you banging on about ineffability along with everything else.”

“Just a thought,” said Crowley. Was all of this ineffable? And what about the banging? Had that been ineffable, too? God knew everything, foresaw everything – that was the whole point of omniscience, after all. So did God know about the thing with the carrot? Had Crowley always been _destined_ to end up in an angel’s bed, wearing nothing but a rapidly melting whipped cream bikini? What kind of a God even came up with that kind of thing? And if they did, it was a shame they’d fallen out, because Crowley appreciated their sense of humour, if nothing else.

They watched from a distance as Warlock trudged behind his mother, head down, eyes on his phone. He’d grown a lot in the last couple of years, shooting up like a weed, but to Crowley he would always be the baby who had occupied the space above her hip for the best part of a year. Funny how he’d made such an impression, given that he was a baby for not much longer than a sneeze, in the cosmic scheme of things, but they did that – babies. They had an unhelpful way of worming their way into your heart, which made them very hard to kill when the time was right. Not that Crowley would ever admit it, but he’d never been much good at killing things either. Sure, he stuffed the odd plant into the waste disposal unit, but he wasn’t like Hastur, for example. Hastur was all about the killing, no matter how often Crowley pointed out that there was more to Evil than simply killing things.

As Warlock vanished out of sight, Crowley began contemplating possible deaths for the Antichrist. Grand pianos dropped out of windows. One tonne stage weights with Acme written on them. Cartoon deaths. The kind of deaths that only lasted for a minute, and usually resulted in the character being squished into hilarious shapes, or left standing blackened, wearing the smouldering remnants of their clothes and a pair of comedy underpants.

“So how much _do_ you know about this hellhound?” Aziraphale said. “If that’s not above your pay grade.”

“It’s a dog, okay?” said Crowley. “It shows up on his eleventh birthday. He’s got to name it.”

“Name it?”

“Yes. Throat Ripper or Stalks-By-Night or something.”

Aziraphale frowned. “You think he’s likely to name it that? I mean to say, he named his cat _Custard_.”

“It doesn’t matter if he names it Fluffy, Bonzo or Greg,” said Crowley. “It’s not the name that matters. It’s his assumption of command over the creature. That’s when he’ll come into his power.” _Assuming he has any at all_, said that annoying voice in the back of Crowley’s head. _Assuming that you didn’t fuck it all up back there at St. Beryl’s and somehow deliver a perfectly ordinary human child to the American…_

Crowley shook his head hard in an attempt to dislodge the voice. “Look,” he said. “It’ll turn up at his birthday party, so we need to be alert.”

“Alert to what? The Hound of the Baskervilles showing up the middle of musical chairs?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” said Crowley. “Although they won’t be playing _musical chairs_. Children are much more sophisticated in their choice of birthday party entertainment these days.”

The angel’s eyes lit up, and Crowley realised he’d made a dreadful mistake. The words ‘birthday party entertainment’ were like some kind of MK Ultra trigger for Aziraphale, except instead of them turning him into a deadly Cold War assassin they turned him into a crap magician. “_No_,” said Crowley, but Aziraphale was already flexing his fingers.

“I could entertain.”

“_No_.”

“Get back into the old practise…”

Crowley tried to slither away between the slats of the park bench, but remembered too late that he was the wrong shape to be slithering. Aziraphale was already on his feet, pretending to produce a coin from behind Crowley’s ear. “Stop it,” said Crowley. “Please. I am actually begging you.”

“It was behind your ear.”

“It was never anywhere near my ear.”

“It was quite close to your ear,” said Aziraphale, and returned to the bench. Crowley caught a glimpse of the coin. Like most of Aziraphale’s magic act, it dated from the late nineteenth century.

“We're supposed to be blending in,” said Crowley. “Not drawing attention to ourselves by annoying rabbits.”

But it was too late. The switch had been tripped, and that was how Crowley – on the day of the fateful birthday party – found himself cringing himself nearly inside out while Aziraphale dropped cards, accidentally fired coins across the room, and pissed off a fat white rabbit who surely had better things to do than this.

“…our old friend, Harry the Rabbit!”

Harry the Rabbit fussed and kicked as though he knew how often and how lovingly the angel had savoured _lapin au moutarde_ during the course of his long existence. For someone who swore he could never kill one of God’s precious creatures, Aziraphale had hypocritically hoovered enough of them over the past sixty centuries.

“You’re rubbish!” one of the kids yelled.

“Mommy, I wanna pet the bunny,” said six-year-old Ursula, who had the glazed, avid look of a child who had already had way too much sugar. “Please can I pet the bunny?”

“I don’t think the bunny wants to be petted right now, honey,” said Harriet, as the rabbit made a break for it and a cucumber sandwich bounced off Aziraphale’s head. Someone flicked a spoonful of jelly and ice cream, and this caught on, and the next thing Crowley knew there was a chocolate éclair flying towards him like some kind of delectable guided missile. Ursula shrieked with joy, plunged her hand into the nearest trifle and landed a bull’s eye on Aziraphale’s jacket that proclaimed that she was most definitely her mother’s daughter.

Aziraphale wiped cream from his face and gave Crowley a searching look, but Crowley had no words of comfort for him. According to them Downstairs, the hellhound was supposed to be here by now. And it was five past three.

They slunk off under cover of the food fight, Aziraphale still spilling nonsense – silk scarves, linking rings, playing cards – from the various secret pockets of his black magician’s coat. “It’s late,” he said, producing a limp and lifeless dove from his sleeve.

“Comes of sticking it up your sleeve,” said Crowley.

Aziraphale resurrected the bird and joined him in the Bentley. “Not the bird. The dog,” he said. Something fell out into the footwell, and Crowley, ever alert to any kind of mess in his car, looked down to make sure it wasn’t another dead bird. It wasn’t. This time it was a carrot.

“Don’t say a word,” said Aziraphale, turning scarlet. “It’s for the rabbit.”

“Okay,” said Crowley.

“Take that look off your face. It’s not what you’re thinking.”

“I’m not thinking anything,” said Crowley, who actually thinking a great many things, all of them beginning with expletives and none of them even slightly carrot related. It was ten past three and his mind was squirming with every niggling thought that had haunted him over the last eleven years – all those little kneejerk anxiety moments that popped up at three in the morning, or in the middle of a shower, or sometimes even had the downright rudery to interrupt her when she was face down between a moaning angel’s thighs. Every single nervous ‘nah, it couldn’t be that.’ Every last ‘Hmm, he’s not very antichrist-y, is he?’ They all came roaring back at once.

Crowley turned on the car radio. “It’s probably a clerical error,” he was saying, out loud, as _Gardener’s Question Time _sputtered and gargled, and turned into what it would sound like if an inquiry about the care and feeding of apple scented geraniums suddenly began to _boil_. Aziraphale recoiled as a demonic voice simmered forth from the awful cauldron of Hell sounds.

“YES?”

“Uh…hi,” said Crowley. “Who’s this?”

“THIS IS DAGON, LORD OF THE FILES.”

“Right,” said Crowley. “Yeah. The…um…the hellhound? Just checking that it got off okay?”

“RELEASED TEN MINUTES AGO. WHY? HASN’T IT ARRIVED? IS SOMETHING WRONG?”

“No,” said Crowley, the pit of his stomach turning to ice. “No. Everything’s fine.” He squinted through the windscreen at an imaginary dog, partly to convince himself of his lie and partly to avoid Aziraphale’s expression. The angel’s mouth, still garnished with an absurd eyebrow pencil moustache, was a perfect O of dismay. “Oh, there it is. Great big, helly hellhound. Yup. That’s definitely the dog.” Crowley’s hand shook as he reached for the radio dial. “Lovely talking to you. Catch you later.”

He silenced the radio. His pulse hammered against the inside of his ear drums.

“Oh no,” said Aziraphale.

“What do you mean ‘oh no’?” said Crowley. “Don’t say ‘oh no’ like that. Not at a time like this. Have you any idea how _unhelpful_ that is?”

Aziraphale swallowed and exhaled a long, shaky breath. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t mean to be unhelpful. It’s just that I’ve suddenly realised that I may very well be an absolute cretin.”

“You want to elaborate on that?”

“Right,” said Aziraphale. “What it is, you see, is that when I resurrected the boy, there was paperwork.”

“And?” said Crowley. “Isn’t there always?”

“Well, yes. But he was a child. Under seven. Before the age of reason. Children under the age of reason automatically go straight to Processing.”

“Processing?”

“The Pearly Gates,” said Aziraphale. “Not that they’re actually pearly. Or gates, come to that. It’s actually a lot more bureaucratic than that, but that’s not really the point. There was paperwork because he ended up in Processing, on account of him being an Innocent.”

“Right,” said Crowley. “With you so far. At least, I think I am.”

Aziraphale sighed. “Do you think it _likely_ that the Antichrist would end up in Processing?” he said. “Whether he’d reached the age of reason or not, he’s still the son of Satan. On his death, wouldn’t you think it more likely that he’d be…you know?” Aziraphale jabbed a finger downwards.

“Reunited with his father?” said Crowley. That was a very good point, actually. Where did latent baby Antichrists go when they had run ins with electric fences? Heaven seemed an unlikely location, and if Gabriel had clocked the Antichrist turning up at Processing – well…

There would have been a lot more than just paperwork.

“So what are you saying?” said Crowley. “Are you trying to tell me we could have caught this little mix up six years ago?”

Aziraphale shrugged. “Oopsy.”

“Oopsy? The fucking Antichrist is about to come into his power, we have no idea where or even who he is, and you tell me this now?”

“Well, it didn’t occur to me at the time! I was…addled.”

“Addled?” said Crowley.

“Yes. Addled. I wasn’t thinking clearly, on account of all the…the rampant lesbianism that was going on.”

“Don’t you dare blame me for this. I can’t help it if I’m good with my tongue.”

“Your tongue is hardly the issue, Crowley,” said Aziraphale. “Anyway, just how did this happen in the first place? How have we just spent the last eleven years before Armageddon diligently influencing _the wrong bloody child_?”

Crowley shrugged. Aziraphale stared. And continued to stare.

“Look,” said Crowley, beginning to squirm under angelic scrutiny. “I may…I mean…there might…it’s a possibility…”

The stare only intensified. Crowley gave up trying to form words and made vague noises instead.

“Speak, serpent,” said Aziraphale, and Crowley’s tongue unknotted in spite of himself.

“Fine,” he said. “There might have…might have been a cock up. At the hospital.”

“What hospital?”

“The satanic convent where the kid was born,” said Crowley. “Well, not born. Switched. I assumed I had the right baby in the right room.” Great. The stare was back. And there were definitely more than two eyes involved somewhere. “Will you please stop looking at me like that?”

Aziraphale didn’t.

“There is the remotest, outside possibility,” said Crowley. “That I may have delivered the wrong baby to the wrong people. Very remote. So outside as to be in outer fucking space…no, please stop with the eyes. It’s very upsetting, and it’s not helping. It’s probably not that big of a deal. It’s not the end of the world.”

The angel went right on staring. And it _was_ the end of the world.

“Oh fuck,” said Crowley.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Crowley had briefly done PR for them in the eighties.


	8. And Then The World Blew Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the long delay. Endings are hard. Hope you're all staying safe, and thanks for reading!

It was Friday, but nobody was thanking God that it was Friday, least of all Aziraphale, who was having quite a day of it.

He had just come down from Heaven after an unsettling meeting with the archangels, in which they had seemed almost…enthusiastic(?) about the imminent end of the world.

Once upon a time he had parroted the same line himself, of course: Heaven and Hell will battle, Heaven will win, and it will all be rather lovely. Only then Crowley had slithered up and started _saying things_, things like how Aziraphale would be about as happy playing a harp as Crowley would be wielding a pitchfork, or about how the devil had all the best tunes, and Aziraphale would never hear Mozart, Beethoven or Bach again. “You really want to spend the rest of eternity listening to Vaughn Williams?” Crowley had said. “You’ve never been able to get more than forty seconds into _The Lark Ascending_ without rolling your eyes.”

Crowley had said all of that, and a lot more besides. He’d singled out smoked salmon, opera, and drinks with umbrellas, Victorian dances with handsome young fellows. Or taking the weight off his feet (and his wings) until Aziraphale had been frantic, guilty, and forced to admit that yes, these _were_ a few of his favourite things.

None of them were suitable interests for an angel, but in hindsight they all looked fairly harmless. None of them held a candle to the bigger transgressions, like grinding on a demon’s big toe in the back of a quiet Italian restaurant in West Sussex. And Aziraphale was _very_ aware of his transgressions right now. He had just stood squirming in front of the archangels, hmming and haaing about his attempts to thwart the demon Crowley, while Gabriel looked at him like he was a child who had presented a drawing that he wanted displayed on the front of the fridge. This was a very normal look for Gabriel, but it was Michael who had made Aziraphale the most nervous. She’d been wearing a faintly martial expression that she hadn’t worn in a very long while.

“You’ve done good work, Aziraphale,” Gabriel had said. “I’m sure the boss will take account of it when it comes to your performance review.”

“Performance review?” Aziraphale had said, and the light of battle torches had blazed even brighter in Michael’s eyes.

“The Last Judgement,” she’d said, and looked happy in a way she only looked happy when someone was about to get chucked into the Pit. Forever. “The Lord will hold us all to account for our actions. Even those who were cast out will be exposed, examined and brought before God to answer for their poor decisions.”

And just like that, Armageddon somehow became an even worse proposition than it was already. “All right,” Aziraphale had said, tiptoeing very carefully around the subject. “But what if – and this is purely hypothetical, you understand – one of those outcasts actually did something…good? Would they be…pardoned?”

“Uh, no,” Gabriel had said. “If God pardoned them, then that would be admitting to having made a mistake by tossing them out in the first place. And as we all know…”

“…right. Yes. Infallible. Absolutely.”

“They’d just send them back Downstairs, I expect,” Michael had said, and almost smiled. “Can you imagine? A demon who did good things having to account to the Lords of Hell? That’d be a laugh. They’d run out of pitchforks for that guy. They’d have to get really creative.” She actually sniggered. “They’d probably phone us up and ask if we had any holy water going spare.”

Holy water. Did Crowley still have that? The tartan Thermos that Aziraphale had handed over in 1967? Aziraphale didn’t like to think how the Almighty would judge his actions on that score. And they would, because the wheels were well and truly in motion now.

And they knew. Aziraphale was sure they knew, because Gabriel had looked long and hard at him when he’d said that everything was on schedule, and that the boy was on his way to the Field of Megiddo. They had to know it was the wrong boy. Warlock had been – however briefly – in Processing, for God’s sake. Antichrists did not go to Processing, no matter how small and cute they were at the time. They were still bloody antichrists.

Aziraphale muttered to himself as he paced back and forth beneath the old bandstand in Richmond Park. He was once again doing a terrible job of looking inconspicuous.

And there was the other thing, the thing that turned him into a gibbering idiot in the face of the archangels. Because they had to know about that, too. They were angels, beings of love, finely tuned not only to the music of the spheres but also the sweet symphonies and bum notes of human – and possibly even demon – hearts.

It was no longer a little bit of love. It was a roiling, snarling, messy monster of love that stalked Aziraphale as closely as a shadow. He felt sure that the archangels had seen it darken every time he mentioned Crowley’s name. And it had supposed to go away, to disappear when Aziraphale deemed it dangerous and tried to banish it. But it always came back, and it roared now, as he watched Crowley swagger towards him.

“Well?” said Crowley. “What do you know? Have you found him yet?”

“Who?”

Crowley made one of his exasperated hissing noises. “The Antichrist. His name, his address, his shoe size.”

“Why would I know his shoe size?” said Aziraphale. “And what do you propose we do when we find him?”

“You were the one with the trolley problem.”

“_No_,” said Aziraphale. “I am not doing the…the trolley problem.”

“Why?” said Crowley. “It just got a whole lot easier. It’s not even our trolley anymore.”

Aziraphale remembered the boy’s blameless voice – “Dad, look! I just taught dog to walk on his back legs!” – and shuddered. “He’s somebody’s trolley,” he said. “Somebody’s _child_.”

Crowley’s eyes were hidden by sunglasses, which was just as well. His unfiltered stare – Aziraphale thought – would probably bore right through him like a laser. “_He’s going to end the world_,” said Crowley, with the deliberate slow emphasis of someone talking to an absolute moron.

Aziraphale stared at him for a short, endless moment. Killing a child remained out of the question, and if he didn’t do it, Crowley – who was a good deal better that he liked to admit – never would. “Maybe,” he said, wondering if he was starting to panic. “Maybe that’s…the plan?”

“The plan?”

“The Great Plan.”

Crowley flailed around in a whirl of stamping boots and waving arms. “Fuck the Great Plan!” he said, his voice edging on a scream. “Great steaming, pustulent, hairy bollocks to the Great Fucking Plan.” He shook his head. “Who the hell have you been talking to? No, wait – I’ll rephrase that. Who the _Heaven_ have you been talking to?”

“Crowley, I hardly need to tell you that I haven’t been very good at my job,” said Aziraphale, now very sure that he was panicking. “I need to…I need to…do better.”

“Are you out of your mind? This is no time to try out for Employee of the Month. The world is about to _end_, angel.”

“Yes, and I know that, but…”

“But _what_? Why are you like this? The Great Plan sucks, Aziraphale. Okay, ours isn’t great, but it’s still better than that. Why are you backsliding again? We talked about this.”

“No,” said Aziraphale, finding sudden inspiration in rectitude. He pictured this conversation being picked over in Hell, and saw how Crowley might – if you didn’t know the whole story – come out of it in one piece. “You talked me into it. You tempted me. You talked about Glydebourne and gravad lax, if I remember correctly. You appealed directly to my selfishness.”

“Yeah, and now I’m appealing to your selflessness,” said Crowley, undoing everything again in a handful of words. “Seven and a half billion people, angel. Isn’t that worth getting your hands dirty?”

“No,” said Aziraphale, more concerned about Crowley’s apparent determination to get his hands _clean_. “Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop…stop doing good things.” Oh God, Crowley was glowing with it. Overflowing with inappropriately good intentions. And love. Crowley loved so many things. He loved the Velvet Underground (whatever that was) and single malt. He loved cartoons and the Italian renaissance and silly cocktails served in scooped out coconut shells. He loved the whole damned world, and most of all he loved Aziraphale, which was a disaster. Had he any idea what was coming? If Hell looked into his heart and saw what was there…it didn’t bear thinking about.

“Why can’t you just…do what you’re told?” said Aziraphale. “Why are you so special? You’re a demon. You’re supposed to be evil. You’re not supposed to be trying to save everyone. You’re supposed to be dancing with delight at the idea of death and suffering on a massive scale.”

Crowley let out a low wail of despair. “Okay,” he said. “I know there’s no point in asking, but I’m going to ask again, just so I can say I did. Have. You. Lost. Your. Mind?”

“You always have to be different, don’t you?” said Aziraphale. “Everyone else does what they’re supposed to do, but not you. Not Anthony J. Crowley. Oh no. He has to be different. Doesn’t think the usual rules of…demoning apply to him. _He_ thinks he’s the James Bloody Bond of the Malebolge.”

Crowley took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “So that’s a yes on the insanity, then?” he said. “Good to know. Helpful timing, as always.”

It was. Aziraphale was reasonably sure he’d gone bonkers at this point, but that was fine, because even if he couldn’t see a way to prevent Armageddon, he suddenly saw a means of mitigating it for the both of them. “You may have thought you were doing your job while you were corrupting me and distracting me,” Aziraphale said. “But I may as well tell you now – you never managed it.”

Crowley rolled tired yellow eyes. “World. Ending. Soon. Does that mean anything to you? I hope that means something to you, because I really thought I knew you better than that.”

“You didn’t,” said Aziraphale. “You didn’t know me at all. You thought you were leading me into temptation and depravity, didn’t you? You think you’re the greatest double agent in Hell, but let me tell you – you have nothing, nothing on me. When you whipped out that carrot, I went along with it, because I was doing my _job_.”

“Your job was to get fucked with a carrot?”

“Absolutely,” said Aziraphale. “Heaven sent me to break you, Crowley. Heaven sent me to make you think you were succeeding in tempting an angel—”

“—kind of did. Again, carrot—”

“—but I only pretended to be tempted. My real job was to break your spirit and break your heart, Crowley. Which I did. We both did our jobs so perfectly that we didn’t even know we were doing them.”

Crowley laughed, but there wasn’t much humour in it. “Stop it,” he said. “Just…stop. This is embarrassing. You are not James Bond. You are not even close.”

“I faked every orgasm,” said Aziraphale.

“No, you fucking didn’t. You loved it. You love me.”

“I don’t.”

“You _do_,” said Crowley. “Come on. Stop messing around. Are you going to help me save the world or not?”

As he had often done, Aziraphale tried his best to think about trolleys and levers and keep this whole thing in the realm of the strictly hypothetical. But it didn’t work. All he could see in his mind’s eye was a little boy playing with his dog in a garden. A little boy who had never asked for any of this, or to be born the son of Satan. Worse, he imagined Crowley being desperate enough to…pull the lever, and knew he could never, ever do anything that might allow that to happen. Even if they saved the world that way, Crowley would never be the same again. It would destroy him. He’d always been so good with children. “I…I can’t.”

Crowley gave him a long, cold look. “Huh. I really thought I knew you better than that,” he said, sounding very tired all of a sudden.

“I’m sorry,” said Aziraphale, close to tears.

Crowley shook his head. “Forget it,” he said, and started to walk away. “Have a nice doomsday.”

* * *

It had been a long day.

It was supposed to be Saturday, although it hadn’t felt like a Saturday, on account of all the usual Saturday things – optional opening hours, a fancy cake with his afternoon tea, maybe a cigarette with a glass of sherry in the evening – all being cancelled because the world was about to end.

And now Aziraphale found himself exhausted and ashy, sitting on a bench at a bus stop and passing a recklessly miracled bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape back and forth.

“Busy day,” he said, because he felt he ought to say something.

Crowley, who looked even more exhausted than Aziraphale felt, made a vague noise of assent and passed the bottle back. How he had any kind of capacity for alcohol left was something of a miracle, because when Aziraphale had come across him in the pub earlier Crowley had sounded like someone had tried to force the contents of an entire Highland distillery into the long, thin body of a single lanky demon. Aziraphale hadn’t been able to see him that well, because a spectral body was no substitute for a good pair of human eyes, but he’d managed to make out the blurs of several bottles of whiskey, and had been quite glad that he was also unable to smell Crowley. The blast of booze fumes must have been enough to render the act of lighting a match in his presence hazardous in the extreme.

_ Changed my mind. Stuff happened. Lost my best friend. Lost the woman I loved._

Aziraphale took another swig and glanced over at Crowley, whose slouch had deepened to the point where his spine looked as though it had had enough of the entire concept of gravity.

_ She was perfect. An angel. Blonde, beautiful, so clever it hurt sometimes. Broke my heart, and me a demon. Not sure I’m even s’posed to have a heart._

A bus rounded the corner. Crowley realigned his delinquent vertebrae and rose from the bench. “Come on,” he said, and together – getting on at the same stop, which they’d never done before – they climbed aboard.

The lights inside the bus seemed brighter than usual. The handrails were eye-hurtingly yellow, and the colours of a nearby poster were so blaring and garish that it took Aziraphale a moment to refocus and recognise the writing as English. At first he wondered if the eyes of his recently restored corporation were somehow different, but as he settled in and took stock of the new sharpness of everything around him, he began to understand. Obviously he’d never had much personal experience with mortality, but he’d read enough of the human experience to grasp what might have been going on. Sometimes, after a brush with death, humans described the world as new, refocused in the light of the eternal, and he supposed that was what had happened here. Everything _was_ new. He’d transgressed on a scale that he was sure would have sent him plummeting headlong into Hell, but his halo remained no more tarnished than usual. The world was still spinning, and Heaven and Hell were furious, and he had no idea what was going to come next. Nothing good, he was sure, but humans were right. These moments _did_ have a habit of shifting your focus.

So when he felt Crowley’s little finger brush against the side of his own, he went along with it. He could do this now. He’d done the worst thing he could do as an angel. He’d disobeyed Heaven, so he might as well. He felt everything so vividly – the rough upholstery of the bus seat under his hand, the tip of Crowley’s pinky finger stroking back and forth over the knuckle of his own. He breathed deep, taking in the smells of old bus tickets, dusty feet and heavily singed demon, and closed his eyes as he squeezed Crowley’s fingers tight, tight, hard enough to bruise. He could feel every beat of his heart and it felt as though it was about to explode, but whatever happened next – he realised – he didn’t have to do this anymore. For good or ill, he was free.

“I love you,” he said, looking straight ahead.

Crowley made one of his incoherent snorty noises. “_Now?_” he said.

“If not now, when?”

Crowley sighed, and gave him a sidelong look, sunglasses slipping down, yellow eyes so tired they were almost rolling out of his head. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, all right.”

“‘Yeah, all right’? After everything, that’s all you have to say about it?”

“I hate you,” said Crowley, unconvincingly.

“You don’t,” said Aziraphale. “You never did. And that’s the problem.”

“What problem?”

“Crowley, did it ever occur to you that we both had a performance review pending?”

Crowley looked at him like he was a lunatic. Which was fair. He sounded like one, after all. “No,” Crowley said. “Wasn’t on my calendar. Actually I got a bit distracted with the impending apocalypse, to tell you the truth. What performance review?”

“_The_ performance review. The Last Judgement.”

“Oh,” said Crowley. “_Ohh_.”

“Yes. Now do you see it? Imagine if the Lords of Hell had been able to look into your soul and see just how bad you were at your job.”

“Nrrr,” said Crowley, wrinkling his nose. “I think they’ve got a pretty good idea by now.”

“Nonsense,” said Aziraphale. “They don’t know the half of how bad you are, or how good. You _love_, Crowley. You love the world. You love me. You loved that little boy, the one you were supposed to corrupt and ruin and turn into a despot so cruel he’d make Caligula look like the Easter Bunny. But you didn’t, did you? Instead you drew faces on his dippy eggs, kissed it better when he skinned his knee, and told him bedtime stories about zombie Snow White.”

Crowley folded his arms. His shoulder cracked audibly. He bit the inside of his cheek, already hollowed out by a streak of soot, and failed to look as though he didn’t care.

“If they’d been able to look into you,” Aziraphale said. “And saw how much you loved me – the enemy – then what do you suppose they’d do to you? You might think you’d get points for debauching an angel, but it was never pure debauchery, not even that time we went to Coco de Mer and bought all those dildos. Even that thing you did with the carrot was an act of love. You would never have survived that kind of inquisition, Crowley. Never. You’re too good for Hell, and they ever knew how good then I hate to think of what they might do to you.”

Crowley softened and swayed, his cheek against Aziraphale’s hair. “Yeah, all right,” he said, and pressed a tired, close-mouthed kiss against the curls. “Say it again?”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

And there it was, the thing they hadn’t dared to say for so long now, all out in the open. Aziraphale had fantasised thousands of ways this might have happened, in so many different romantic settings. On a park bench in Paris, or a gondola in Venice, or a love-rumpled bed at the Savoy in London. He’d pictured champagne and oysters and crepes suzette, but here they were – ash streaked and smelling faintly of sulphur – on a bus somewhere in deepest, darkest Oxfordshire. And it wasn’t disappointing. Not really, because nothing could be disappointing now that they were finally here, in love, and able to admit it. In love, Aziraphale thought he could almost – almost – think about his poor bookshop without wanting to burst into tears and sob for the next century.

“I knew, by the way,” said Crowley.

“Knew what?”

“What you were up to. When you were trying to break my heart at the bandstand.”

“You did not,” said Aziraphale. “You didn’t have a clue.”

“I did. You’re rubbish at subterfuge. The whole time you looked like you were about to cry.”

“Oh, shush. I’m far too tired to argue with you right now.”

Aziraphale stared out of the window opposite, but it was too dark outside and the window only gave back the reflection of his own face, and Crowley’s beyond, in hatchet profile. They both looked absolutely done in, and Aziraphale almost regretted ever learning to sleep in the first place. Sloth, another sin he’d succumbed to, usually after Lust, and possibly also Gluttony if they’d been out to dinner as part of the foreplay. And yet if he’d never learned to sleep he would never have learned what it was like to wake up next to Crowley, so maybe it was worth it. Worth this love that would probably damn him, but which he still couldn’t make himself regret entirely.

“One thing that still baffles me,” he said.

“What? Just the one?” said Crowley.

“Well, no, but it’s the top of a very long list.”

“What’s that, then?”

“They didn’t know, Crowley,” said Aziraphale. “I was Upstairs, you see, just before I spoke to you at the bandstand. Gabriel was saying that things were already in motion, as they’d been written: the boy was on his way to the Field of Megiddo and the last battle was about to start.”

Crowley frowned. “Okay?”

“Yes, but it was the _wrong boy_. They must have known it was the wrong boy, because I resurrected him and he ended up in Processing. And you’d better believe there’d be a kerfuffle upstairs if the Antichrist – born and conceived in the darkest, most unforgivable state of evil – had turned up in Processing. The theological implications alone…” Aziraphale shook his head. “And the paperwork. It doesn’t bear thinking about.”

“Yeah, but that didn’t happen, did it?” said Crowley. “Because Warlock wasn’t the Antichrist.”

“And nobody noticed,” said Aziraphale. “Gabriel still thought he was, even though he had to know that the American ambassador’s son had already turned up in Processing that time.”

“Angel, this is _Gabriel_ we’re talking about. The guy who was all ‘Hey, did you do something different with your hair?’ when he walked into your bookshop and caught you sporting a brand-new vagina and a forty inch bust.”

“Forty-two, actually,” said Aziraphale. “I was an E cup.”

“I know. You were a big girl. Couldn’t exactly miss those tatas, not unless you were the Archangel Gabriel. He’s not exactly the most observant member of the Heavenly Host, is he?”

“True.”

“Anyway,” said Crowley. “How many Innocents pass through Processing on a regular day?”

“Oh, well. A few. A lot. Numbers took a bit of a dive when humans improved obstetric care and stopped giving infants laudanum, but there are still a lot. Only more or less continuous flow of souls to Heaven, if you want to know the truth.”

“I believe it. Hell is fucking crowded.” Crowley shifted on the bus seat. “But that’s my point, you see. Constant flow of souls, happening all the time. Probably the only reason Gabriel noticed is because the flow got briefly interrupted and he had to come down here and slap you on the wrist. Then he forgot all about it, because you’re only a principality and he’s the Archangel Gabriel.”

“Do you really think it could be that simple?” said Aziraphale.

Crowley shrugged. “Perfectly ordinary cock up, for my money.”

“I don’t know, Crowley. Heaven doesn’t make mistakes.”

“Doesn’t it?”

In theory, it didn’t. But it did, because the evidence was right there, sitting next to Aziraphale on the bus. One of the best and brightest souls in the universe, and he’d been tossed down to Hell. “Perhaps,” said Aziraphale, and took hold of Crowley’s hand again. “Perhaps you’re right.”

They sat in exhausted silence until the bus pulled up in Mayfair. In spite of Crowley’s numerous invitations, and it being almost just around the corner from Soho, Aziraphale had never been here before. Inside the shiny black and silver lift, Crowley hit the button that said ‘Penthouse’ and up they went. The lift opened on a vestibule with an Art Deco skylight. The marble floor was black as winter ice, and looked just as cold. Once, perhaps, it might have looked just as treacherous to Aziraphale, but that time now felt like it was forever away. He realised that he had been wanting to fully trust Crowley for so long that now he finally had that luxury, it no longer felt like a luxury. It felt like a natural right, a state of being that should have always existed between them.

Everything he ever knew was hopelessly broken. And by the same token everything felt as though it had the potential to be _put right_.

Crowley’s flat was strange and huge and so empty that Aziraphale’s first thought was of Heaven, with its vast white emptinesses and immaculate floors. There were plants everywhere, their leaves green and glossy. They looked like they’d had a lot of love and attention lavished on them, but they trembled slightly whenever Crowley passed, and Aziraphale realised that maybe they’d only received attention. And probably not the good kind.

In the wide spaces between the sparse furniture were strange statues, including an eagle that looked vaguely familiar for some reason, and a pair of angels doing something that might – or might not – have been wrestling. Aziraphale followed Crowley through to a stainless steel and black marble kitchen, all the while trying to feel something, some flicker of Crowley’s love that had clung to all the cold, stylish things he’d gathered around him. There was a hum of faint warmth as he passed the eagle, and Crowley’s large and extensive record collection, but on the whole the entire place felt flat, muted, empty of resonance. He yearned for the cosy clutter of his beloved bookshop, and the thought was like lemon on a papercut. Never mind trying not to cry this time. He was very close to dropping to the floor and simply screaming, like Warlock used to do in his biggest tantrums.

Crowley seemed to sense his distress. “Want something to eat?” he said, and opened a fridge that could have directly opened onto the inside of Aziraphale’s id. There was chocolate cake and sushi, and smoked salmon with dill sauce. Inside the fridge door was a cocktail shaker, its dimpled copper sides frosted with fresh ice, and Aziraphale knew without tasting that inside would be a newly mixed Tom Collins, just like the ones they’d sipped on the patio of the gardener’s cottage.

“Oh God,” he said, and almost buckled under the weight of how much trouble they were both in. “Did we just save the world for _sushi_?”

“Yes,” said Crowley.

“_Fuck._”

“Don’t say that like it’s a bad thing,” said Crowley, taking his hands. “You love sushi.”

“I know,” said Aziraphale. “I do, but please don’t take it the wrong way if I pass right now. I don’t think I could eat a thing.”

Crowley kissed him, tender and soft, with a flicker of tongue. “The sushi is just…a metaphor. Like your trolley thing. Yes, we saved the world for sushi, and cake, and gin cocktails, and interesting little restaurants where they know you. And what’s wrong with saving the world for any of those things? We saved it for all those times where you laugh so hard you accidentally fart, or that time I’d spent so long in the company of infants that I baby talked your tits.”

It had been a long day, but Aziraphale finally surrendered to the tears that kept trying to fall. He laughed and cried at once, clinging to Crowley in the light of the open fridge.

“Maybe it is selfish,” said Crowley. “Saving the world for those little things, but I don’t know about you – _I_ wasn’t ready to have them end. When it was just you and me and a red firelight, or when you’d push your thigh between mine and fall asleep with your head over my heart, like you belonged there.” His glasses clattered across the marble surface. His eyes were as wet as Aziraphale’s. “Call me selfish, angel, but I wasn’t ready for any kind of world where that would never happen again. I’m still not ready. Might not ever be ready, actually.”

“Darling…” said Aziraphale. “I love you so much, but what on earth are we going to do?”

“We’re going to live,” said Crowley. “And we’re going to be okay. And be together. Always. In love, the way we should be. Because you were right, angel. What is the fucking point if nobody gets a happily ever after? It’s time for ours.”

“Yes, but _how_?”

Crowley closed the fridge and led the way to an office, in which the throne and enormous Rococo desk were somehow _not_ the most bizarre things in the room. There was a large, evil-smelling puddle of something steaming on the floor, and Crowley gave it a wide berth. “Here,” he said, and pointed out the spill of singed paper bearing Agnes Nutter’s last prophecy. “Choose your faces wisely.”

“Oh, I’m an idiot,” said Aziraphale. “Of course. We can change our corporations. Disappear.”

“No. We don’t disappear. Look – playing with fire. Remember you said something about an incinerator?”

“Hellfire, yes. The only way you can destroy an angel.”

“Right,” said Crowley. “And how do you destroy a demon?”

Aziraphale’s eyes were drawn inevitably to the horrid puddle. His old tartan Thermos stood empty on the desk. “Who?” he said, feeling as though he should ask. It was only polite.

“Oh, nobody you’d know,” said Crowley. “Just a minor…fallen angel. Duke of Hell.”

Aziraphale gulped. He didn't like to contemplate the penalties for that sort of thing. “You liquidised a Duke of Hell?”

“A bit, yes.”

“With one Thermos?”

Crowley shrugged. “It’s potent stuff. You weren’t kidding when you said it was the holiest, were you?”

“Oh dear.” Aziraphale sniffed. The former Duke of Hell really did smell rather awful. “Do you have a mop and bucket? I could clean that up for you.”

“It might be dangerous.”

“Don’t be silly. It’s holy water. I could take a bath in the stuff and…” He trailed off as he saw Crowley’s face brighten with a grin of perfect mutual understanding. “Oh, I _see_. We don’t _change_ our corporations. We switch.”

“I’m flame retardant,” said Crowley. “And you don’t dissolve in holy water.”

“All right. How do we do it?”

“The usual way. You’ve left your body before.”

“Not on purpose,” said Aziraphale, who was still getting to grips with his new corporation. It seemed very much like the old one, except that the wrists on this one didn’t make occasional crunchy sounds when you flexed them. Which was nice.

“I’m talking about the other times,” said Crowley, leading him away from the smelly puddle and into a hallway. “_You know_. When you were too full of love to hold it inside. When you’d light up the cottage. Blow out the windows. And that one time you caused a minor earthquake.”

“Right. So you mean to make me leave my body by way of…cunnilingus?”

Crowley waggled his tongue. “I’ve done it before.”

“Darling, don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m very tired, and…male…and just not…”

“I know,” said Crowley. “Me, too.” He ran a hand over Aziraphale’s cheek. “I know you’re new to this, but you know when you possess someone?”

“Well, now I do, yes.”

“Leaving your body is a lot like that. Only in reverse.”

“That seems easy,” Aziraphale said.

“It is. Squeezing the toothpaste out of the tube is a lot easier than putting it back in."

"What?"

"Nothing," said Crowley. "Just kiss me.”

Their lips met. Almost immediately Aziraphale felt Crowley _push_, crowding his corporation. From his recent crash course in possession, Aziraphale knew that this was the point where the possessed usually reacted with resistance and perfectly reasonable anxieties that they were having some kind of stroke, but this was Crowley, familiar and beloved. He felt the thrust of Crowley’s will, and with it Crowley’s fierce determination that they were going to live, and love, and maybe take up gardening. And Aziraphale was going to wear a frilly apron and try to make jam again, and everything was going to be perfect at last.

“Darling,” he said, and when he spoke his voice felt different, throatier, coming from higher in his chest. When he opened his eyes the dark hallway seemed much brighter, and he was staring at his own face, only the expression – watchful, wide-eyed, slow-blinking – was Crowley’s.

His knees felt as though they were going to give out. Crowley shifted from foot to foot in Aziraphale’s body, reached behind himself and plucked at the seat of his trousers. “Oof, wedgie,” he said, and paused mid-adjustment. “What the…?”

Aziraphale curdled with shame. The Antichrist had obviously performed an extremely faithful reconstruction of Aziraphale’s body, inappropriate underwear and all. There were certain aspects of taking a feminine corporation that had been harder to give up than others.

“Are you wearing—”

“—yes—”

“—ladies’ pants?”

“Yes. Don’t make a big thing of it.”

“I wasn’t,” said Crowley. “But do you mean to tell me that the whole time when you were waving a flaming sword around in the face of the imminent apocalypse, you were wearing frilly French knickers?”

“I feel confident when I feel pretty,” said Aziraphale.

“I'm not judging, angel. Just amused.” Crowley frowned. “Why is it so fucking dark in here?”

“Oh, sorry. That’ll be me,” said Aziraphale. “Your night vision really is quite good, isn’t it?”

“Why do you think I wear sunglasses all the time?”

“Is there a mirror?”

“Here.” Crowley led the way down the hall to a huge, floor to ceiling mirror. And there they stood, familiar and yet unfamiliar, right and yet wrong, and still not quite there yet.

“Don’t stick your chin out like that,” said Aziraphale, and it was strange, seeing Crowley’s body speak with his own voice. “And don’t slouch.” In the spirit of getting things right, he tried to loosen his own – or rather Crowley’s – knees and hips, and almost collapsed to the floor. “Oh dear. I feel…”

“Yeah, sorry,” said Crowley. “My body’s quite tired. I drove through a wall of hellfire and stopped time. It’s been a bit of a day, to tell you the truth.”

Aziraphale laughed. “I do love you.”

“I love you, too, but we’ve got a lot of work to do yet. The voices, the mannerisms, the correct forms of address for infernal denizens…”

“Yes, I know. Is there any coffee?”

“There’s loads of coffee,” said Crowley. “And plenty of stronger stuff besides. Come on.” He turned back towards the kitchen.

“All right. Let’s get to it.” Aziraphale followed, past the statue. “By the way, are those angels doing what I think they’re doing?”

* * *

And then the world blew up.

Sort of.

It had, and it hadn’t, because they’d saved it from Armageddon. London was still there. The Ritz was still there. Crowley was still there, on the other side of the bathroom door, in a suite that had just miraculously become available, for no other reason than because Aziraphale dared. And because Aziraphale could.

Oh, the world was still very much there, but Aziraphale’s world had blown up in a fashion more spectacular than any finale Warlock could have imagined in any of his most bored, destructive moments. Looking in the mirror and seeing himself there, Aziraphale knew he’d never go back to the being who had inhabited this particular corporation for the best part of six thousand years. When he’d raised a glass to the world, he’d been raising a glass to this brave new one, one in which he intended to give fewer fucks than were on offer in the _Lysistrata_. He had disobeyed and got away with it. His wings were unsinged and his heart was light. Splashing about in that bathtub in Hell had been the most liberating thing that had happened to him since…well…since that incident with the carrot. He’d had _fun_, and he was determined to have a whole lot more.

He dropped his coat on the bathroom floor, along with his waistcoat, trousers and shirt. He stepped out of his lacy underwear and reached for a hotel robe. Wearing nothing but the robe, socks and suspenders, Aziraphale walked out of the bathroom and found Crowley – barefoot, but disappointingly clothed – reading the room service menu.

“They’ve got that turbot with truffle thing that you liked,” said Crowley. “If you fancy.”

“Not right now,” said Aziraphale. “Why are you still wearing clothes?”

Crowley put down the menu and rose from the sofa. “Why are you still wearing socks?”

“I’m testing a theory.”

“What theory is that, then?”

“Do you remember?” said Aziraphale. “How I once said that a woman naked except for her stockings is a gloriously seductive sight, but a man—”

“—naked except for his socks is completely ridiculous,” said Crowley. “Yeah, I do. Now that you mention it.”

“Well,” said Aziraphale, and dropped the robe. “How do I look?”

Crowley laughed and drew closer. “Completely ridiculous,” he said, his hand on Aziraphale’s hip. He was smiling, and it was his real smile, not the flashbulb one he turned on and off for appearances, the one that never reached his eyes. This was the one that had further disarmed Aziraphale when he’d been standing, worrying, newly swordless, on the wall of the Garden of Eden. He leaned in, and as they kissed Aziraphale worked a magic trick that – for once – he felt sure that Crowley would appreciate. He dived down into his own essence, rearranged the structure of his cells and felt flesh adjust itself accordingly – hips rounding, breasts swelling, sexual organs shifting into a new configuration. She broke the kiss and ran her fingers through her longer curls, already thrilled by the light in Crowley’s eyes. Almost there. Everything was almost perfect.

“How about now?” she said, gesturing to the socks.

“Gloriously seductive,” said Crowley, golden eyes shimmering. “And also completely ridiculous.” He reached out and pulled her close. “Lose the socks already.”

Aziraphale snapped her fingers and did so. “Please,” she said. “I want…”

“What do you want, angel? Tell me. Anything you want.”

“I want the woman I love.”

As they kissed Aziraphale felt Crowley’s jaw narrow under her hand, beard stubble giving way to the silk of a woman’s cheek. Her other hand was on Crowley’s hip, and she heard the muted creak of bones shifting as it filled out and flared. “I’m here,” Crowley whispered, and she was. At last. Here she was with her huge eyes and her nimble tongue and her endless legs, and her light boned, delicate beauty. Her hair was the same spiky crop she’d worn as a male, and it had the strange effect of making her look even prettier and even more feminine. Aziraphale curled a hand around the bared, beautiful nape of Crowley’s slender neck, and tiptoed to meet her mouth once more.

“I love you,” she whispered, against Crowley’s lips. It felt like the first time, and it was everything and nothing all at once, a huge little nothing that she’d bit her tongue against too many times to count, or mouthed silently into Crowley’s hair in the middle of the night, whenever Crowley was snoring and safely out of earshot. “I love you so much.”

Crowley tipped her backwards onto the bed, landing on top. Her fully clothed body made Aziraphale feel twice as naked, and frantic to get her out of her clothes, but Crowley’s jeans were now even tighter than usual, a slight thickening of new, female flesh spilling above the waistband. The shirt, at least, came off easily, baring Crowley’s small, perfect breasts. Aziraphale cried out and reached for them, caressing and suckling at Crowley’s nipples, her hips already moving as she rubbed herself against one long, denim thigh. Neither of them seemed to have enough hands and mouths in that moment. They were starved and scrambling, clinging and gasping with need.

“Say it again,” Crowley said, her voice rough and hungry. She sucked greedily at Aziraphale’s nipple.

“I love you.”

“And again.” Crowley pushed her breasts together, long tongue flickering over both nipples.

“I love you,” Aziraphale said, trying to hold Crowley’s thigh steady between her own.

Crowley had other ideas. She slithered down the bed, her fingers pushing inside and making Aziraphale arch and cry out. “Again,” she said, her nose against Aziraphale’s belly button.

“I love you.” Aziraphale moaned. She’d almost forgotten how good this felt, but her body hadn’t. She arched again to meet Crowley’s mouth, swooning into the wet, demanding softness of it. “I love you,” she said, again, because it was only a fraction of what Crowley deserved. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

Crowley’s long fingers pushed deep inside her, tongue flicking and lashing at her clitoris. “Louder,” Crowley said, between licks, and Aziraphale could only obey.

“I love you, I love you, I love you…” Her voice rose with the strokes of her hips. This was going to be over very quickly, but it didn’t matter. Not now that there would always be more. “I love you with all my heart, all my soul, and all my…oh yes, _there_, there…all my cunt…don’t stop, I love you, I love you Crowley, I love youuuu…”

She came fast, wild and whooshy, bucking as she slowed. “Oh God, get back up here,” she said, when she could catch her breath again. Crowley got to her feet, struggling to peel off a pair of jeans that no longer fit her properly.

“Fuck it,” she said, and removed her jeans with a snap of her fingers. She was pale and slender and desperate, her hips grinding so that Aziraphale could feel her wet beyond the untrimmed curls of her bush. She was writhing all over the place, whimpering softly with need, almost like she’d forgotten how to do this. Aziraphale steadied her, slowed her frantic hips between her palms and held her, but as soon as she reached between Crowley’s legs Crowley’s hips went into overdrive again. With one smooth, greedy motion, Crowley swallowed all four of Aziraphale’s fingers up to the last knuckle. She hung there for a long moment, head back, eyes closed, lip bitten, savouring the sensation of fullness. Her cunt was wide and soft and drenched, a titillating reminder of just how elastic she was in there, and how some nights she had loved nothing more to take Aziraphale all the way, tight around Aziraphale’s wrist and almost coming at even the slightest shift of Aziraphale’s fingers inside her. She trembled as Aziraphale’s thumb found her clitoris, and her red lower lip slipped out from under her teeth as her mouth opened to moan, low and indescribably sweet. She rocked on her knees as Aziraphale began to fuck her – slow, slow, because they had all the time in the world now – and she started to moan steadily in time with each thrust of hips and hand. Her eyes remained closed as she lifted up her voice, loud and wordless. Her hips urged Aziraphale on, harder, deeper, and finally she opened her eyes.

“Darling,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley cried out, her big black wings unfolding in a soft thunder of feather and bone. Aziraphale could feel her beginning to come, and took her higher and harder. As her moans broke into a final wail, the lightbulbs on the bedside tables blew out, and for a moment Aziraphale thought she could see – like an extension of Crowley’s messy red hair – the faint, fiery outline of what had once been a halo. She, the fallen angel who had always joked about sauntering vaguely downwards, was finally given the freedom to remember what it felt like to be a being of love.

Crowley dropped, face down, panting. She was still slick and soft beneath Aziraphale’s hand, her wings stirring gently as she shuddered to a halt. She trembled hard and sniffed, and when she raised her head Aziraphale saw that she was crying.

“Shh. It’s all right. I’ve got you. What’s the matter?”

Crowley swallowed and rolled off. “Is this real?” she said. “Are we really free?”

Aziraphale smiled so hard that her face seemed to forget what it was supposed to be doing and decided to cry at the same time. “Yes, my darling,” she said, curling close, nose to nose on the pillow, the way they used to have all of their best conversations. “Yes, we are. We’re free to be whatever we want to one another.” She kissed Crowley’s mouth, her forehead, the wet lids of her eyes. “You’re so beautiful.”

“So are you. You smell like stardust.”

“I think,” said Aziraphale, still kissing everything within reach of her lips. “That it might be you this time.” She was beyond delirious. She could have drowned happily in Crowley’s huge, honey coloured eyes. “Oh, you. Look at you. You absolute treasure.”

Crowley’s eyes filled again. “Stop it,” she said, turning a delightful shade of pink. “If you keep making me cry this much I’m going to fucking dissolve.”

“Oh, don’t say things like that. Not after the day we’ve had.”

“Been a bit of a weird Sunday, hasn’t it?” said Crowley. “Quite surprised that your lot were so enthusiastic about incinerating people on a Sunday. Does that count as keeping the sabbath holy?”

“Sabbaths are flexible,” said Aziraphale. “They used to be on Saturday.” She giggled. “I used to reserve Sundays for extra long baths, you know.”

“Well, you certainly got one,” said Crowley. “Were you serious about the rubber duck?”

“Absolutely. It was actually tremendous fun. Did you enjoy yourself Upstairs?”

Crowley folded her wings with a rustle. “Nah, not really,” she said. “I was too busy thinking about how much I wanted to set fire to Gabriel. How are you even made from the same substance as them? They’re so…” She trailed off into one of her incoherent noises.

“Well, they’re good at being angels,” said Aziraphale, trying to be diplomatic.

“They’re bad at being good,” said Crowley. “Not like you.”

“I’m a terrible angel.”

“And that’s what makes you the best angel in all of Heaven and Earth,” said Crowley, kissing her. “You were at your worst when you were trying to be a good angel.”

“Maybe,” said Aziraphale. “And I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all the nonsense I put you through.”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” said Crowley, who – despite how hard she dug her nails in – could never hold on to a grudge for long. It was one of the many things that made her such an incompetent demon. “Not now. You’re here now.”

“Yes, I am,” said Aziraphale, and snuggled in for more smiles and kisses and the kind of ridiculous cooings that they’d always held themselves back from before. Now that there was no reason to do so, Aziraphale was sure that they would become completely absurd, if they weren’t already, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. Not after it had taken her six thousand years to get here. “I’m so mad about you,” she said, kissing Crowley’s nipples. “And I’ve missed your dear little boobs.”

“I missed yours,” said Crowley. “And there’s a lot of them to miss.” She reached up and tried to cup one, but her hand wasn’t up to the job. “Did they get bigger?”

“Oh, probably. I’ve been comfort eating again. I expect I should work some of this podge off.”

“Don’t change a thing,” said Crowley. “Unless you want to.” She traced the curve of Aziraphale’s hip. “You’re voluptuous. Curvaceous. You’re my big pile of ice-cream.” Her fingers tiptoe walked down Aziraphale’s belly. “All alone with big fat Fanny…”

Aziraphale laughed. “And you were _such_ a naughty nanny.”

“I couldn’t help it,” said Crowley. “You were so fucking sexy. You should have seen yourself, when you got out of that taxi backwards, with your dainty little feet and your big round bum…I didn’t even know it was possible to want you more until that moment.”

“My dearest,” said Aziraphale, fervently hoping the extra champagne she had ordered from room service would arrive, so that they could get down to round two without any interruptions.

“And you had that gardenia pinned to your tits,” Crowley said. “And you didn’t even know it was a gardenia.” She nuzzled in, laughing. “You were a rubbish gardener.”

“And you were an excellent nanny,” said Aziraphale. “Despite all your worst efforts, the boy turned out very well.”

“I know,” said Crowley, and sighed. “We are so bad at our jobs.”

“We really are.” There was a knock on the door. “Oh, that’ll be the champagne.”

Aziraphale threw on a robe and went to fetch it. When she came back Crowley was standing nude in front of the gilt-edged full length mirror, settling into her newly altered corporation. Her legs were smooth and her pubic hair had been restored to its usual tidy vertical stripe. As Aziraphale watched, Crowley’s hair grew, cropped spikes giving way to long red curls, like the ones she’d worn on Golgotha on that long ago Good Friday. She shook them out over her bare, freckled shoulders, as though trying them on for size.

“You have such lovely hair,” said Aziraphale.

“You like it like this?”

Aziraphale slipped behind her and teased her by putting champagne chilled hands on her breasts. “You look like Rita Hayworth.”

Crowley laughed and bent over – small breasts dropping like fruits – and did the hair flip from _Gilda_. “I’m not exactly decent,” she said.

“Hush,” said Aziraphale, and handed her a glass. “You’re a lot more decent than you’ll admit, and you know it.”

Crowley took the glass and kissed her. “Why are you still wearing clothes?”

“No idea.” Aziraphale dropped the dressing gown again, so that they both stood naked in front of the mirror. It was marvellous, really – not just the beauty but the diversity of the female form. All those different widths of hip and bust and waist that could present a thousand different silhouettes and configurations of curves. Crowley was model slim, with long legs, boyish hips and bee sting breasts, while Aziraphale was solidly voluptuous, round of belly, breast and bottom, her thighs thick and her knees dimpled. She caught Crowley’s eyes in the mirror, saw the light in them and wondered that she’d ever thought of herself as plump and dumpy. From the beginning, Crowley had doted on every overflowing inch of her.

Crowley’s free hand cupped her breast, moved down over her belly and lower, fingers tangling in her pubic hair. “You’re fucking gorgeous,” she said, her lips against Aziraphale’s bare shoulder.

“So are you.”

“Not a patch on you, angel. Look at you. All that time and I had no idea you were such a beautiful woman.”

Aziraphale’s toes curled in the pile of the rug. “You’re going to make me vain,” she said, but in truth she liked what she saw in the mirror. She liked her flushed cheeks, her heavy breasts and flaring hips. She liked the dent of her pointless navel, satisfying as a thumb print pushed into a taut, smooth, newly risen round of bread dough. Most of all she liked Crowley’s hand between her legs, cupping and cradling her where she was already – once again, because it never seemed to end – beginning to melt.

“Lying is a sin, too,” said Crowley, the tip of her tongue red on the edge of Aziraphale’s ear. Her s’s hissed like candles snuffed with damp fingers. “Face the truth, angel. The naked truth. You’re a treat for the senses, especially the eyes.”

“I suppose so,” said Aziraphale, sipping her champagne. “I _do_ feel pretty like this. The fashion is much more interesting, and I love all the sexy underwear.” She caught Crowley’s eyes in the mirror. “Do you think…maybe…we could stay like this for a while? Even just a couple of hundred years, just to try it out. Maybe even longer, if we like it. I’d like to get the hang of it a bit more.”

“Really? After how many millennia of resisting changing your corporation, you finally want to lean into your feminine side?”

“Yes,” said Aziraphale, turning to look her in the eye properly. “Yes, I think I do. Do you think you might…do the same?”

Crowley shrugged bare shoulders. “Sure,” she said. “You know me. I’m easy. Male, female, reptile – it’s all the same to me.” She waved a hand over her lovely, lanky body. “You want this, you can have this.”

“Oh, I’m so glad you said that,” said Aziraphale. “You see, my feminine side does seem to be a tremendous lesbian.”

“I can get along with that,” said Crowley, and topped up her glass. “Here's to tremendous lesbians.”

“To tremendous lesbians.”

* * *

It had taken them six thousand years, but they finally got to go on that picnic.

There was French bread, asparagus quiche, camembert and Chablis, and fat white grapes that still held the chill of the picnic cooler. For sweets they had macarons and Madeira cake, and ginger snaps with brandy cream filling. Crowley, hands folded behind her head and knees apart, lay back on the tartan blanket, her face tilted to the sun and her skirt riding high enough to flash the tops of her stockings. And more besides. She wasn’t wearing any underwear again.

“Really, dear,” said Aziraphale.

“What?”

“Close your legs. If someone happens to come up that hill they’re going to get an absolute eyeful.”

Crowley grinned and stretched. “You know what they say, angel – smile and the whole world smiles with you. And my vertical smile is more like a grin these days. I’m just sharing the joy.”

“You’re a disgrace, Crowley.”

“Thank you,” said Crowley. “That’s one of the nicest things you’ve ever said to me.” She closed her knees and twisted on the blanket. Besides the brief black leather skirt she wore a maroon silk top with a draped neckline so plunging that one of her nipples threatened to escape when she rolled onto her side. “Do you know what Dowling said once?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea.”

“He said I dressed like a trollop. Do you think I dress like a trollop?”

Aziraphale considered her response very carefully. “Um…I think you have a bold sense of style,” she said, as the silk slid sideways and revealed a crescent moon sliver of deep pink areola. Even when she’d been buttoned up to the neck in pussy bows and pencil skirts, Crowley had still conveyed the impression that there was something infernally exciting going on underneath. And there was. She almost never wore a bra and there wasn’t a fabric woven that didn’t seem to make her nipples harden with the slightest friction.

“A bold sense of style?” said Crowley, her glasses sliding down her nose. Her slitted pupils were large in spite of the sunlight, and Aziraphale knew that if she stuck a hand under Crowley’s skirt right now she would find her wet and wanting.

“That’s what I said,” said Aziraphale. “One that involves…flashing quite a lot of your bits.”

“So, like a trollop?”

“I have no idea how to answer that question.”

“Say yes,” said Crowley, leaning over to steal a kiss. Her tit had fallen out of her top and her skirt was barely fit for purpose.

“All right, yes,” said Aziraphale, unable to resist pinching a nipple. “Sometimes you look like an absolute slut.”

“Cool,” said Crowley. “Does it make you want to fuck me?”

“Always, darling. Always.”

Crowley wriggled upright. Her tongue still tasted gingery. “Fuck me now?” she said. “You can bang me senseless in the back of the Bentley. I know you’ve always wanted to.”

“Really?” said Aziraphale, who had thought about it on more than one occasion. “I thought you’d be a lot more precious about the upholstery than that.” Since there was no reason to resist temptation anymore she slipped a hand under Crowley’s leather skirt. The outer lips were already parted by the way she’d been sitting, and the inside was indecently, luxuriously wet. Her breath trembled as they kissed and Aziraphale pushed inside, two fingers sliding into her. Oh, it was tempting, just to give in and have her right there on the crumb-scattered picnic blanket, but Aziraphale had other plans.

“Please?” Crowley said.

Aziraphale smiled, slipped her fingers out and tasted them, savouring the flavour of salt and sex. “Later,” she said. “I have something else in mind.”

“Good for you. Could it involve stuffing things inside me, please?”

“Actually, yes,” said Aziraphale, remembering. She had just the thing, the perfect means of satisfying Crowley without derailing her plans for the rest of the afternoon. She reached for her handbag and fished inside for the little velvet bag, containing the ben-wa balls they had bought during their extremely dirty weekend at the Savoy. Crowley’s glasses had fallen off, and her eyes were enormous.

“You’ve been walking around with those in your handbag the whole time?” she said. “And this is the first I’m hearing about it?”

Aziraphale dangled the balls from her index finger. “Do you want them or not?”

Shameless, Crowley spread her long, skinny legs. Her red-furred cunt glistened pink and wet in the sunshine. “What do you think?” she said, lying back on her elbows, a pose that hollowed out her collarbones and made sculpture of her pale shoulders. She was delicious, and tripped the background rumble of Aziraphale’s lust into a higher gear.

“All right,” said Aziraphale, her mouth dry. “Lie back, dear.”

Crowley did as she was told, but she wasn’t playing nice. She pulled down the draped neckline of her top, so that her breasts popped out over the top. Her nipples were hard and red, and she wriggled her bottom hopefully against the picnic blanket. Usually when she wriggled like that it meant that someone was about to get fucked so thoroughly that they forgot to talk for about ten minutes afterwards. She was hot and slick to the touch, and moaned so affectingly that Aziraphale almost relented and gave her what she wanted then and there, but at that moment Aziraphale heard human voices further down the hill. Hikers. Shit.

“Sorry, darling,” she said, and pushed the first weighted silicone sphere inside Crowley, who bit her lip and threw her forearm over her face. “Looks like you’ll have to wait after all.”

The balls were large and from this angle Crowley was tight and narrow, so Aziraphale – wanting to get the operation over before someone caught them – slicked the remaining one with a hefty helping of half melted butter and pushed gently until it found its way beneath Crowley’s pubic bone. “This isn’t fair,” said Crowley, and caught sight of Aziraphale’s finger marks in the butter dish. “Oh no. You didn’t? I thought these were supposed to be water based lubricants only?”

“If they get ruined I will buy you a new set,” said Aziraphale, licking the taste of butter and Crowley from her fingertips. “And every other toy your heart desires. Now, come along. Let’s pack up this picnic and get going. I have a surprise for you.”

It was late spring, a time of year that would always remind Aziraphale of her and Crowley’s fling in London, just before Ursula was born. The hedgerows were white with fluffy clouds of may blossom and the new year’s crop of lambs were capering in the green fields. They drove with the windows open, and the wind tugged strands of Crowley’s hair loose from its sloppy knot, making her pppth them away with red tip of her long tongue whenever her hair stuck to her lips. She kept squirming in her seat as the Bentley navigated the winding country lanes, and her skirt kept riding up, so high that by the time they almost reached their destination Aziraphale could see a curl of damp ginger hair beneath the leather hem.

“It’s down here,” said Aziraphale, directing Crowley down an even narrower lane. The road was poorly maintained and the first bump of the suspension drew a low, desperate cry from Crowley’s lips. Her bum – almost bare now – came down hard on the seat and she shuddered over the steering wheel. “Just here,” said Aziraphale, and gestured for her to pull over. “Did you come?”

Crowley leaned back in her seat and shook her head. “Almost.” Breathing hard, Crowley narrowed an eye. Her glasses were nearly falling off her nose and her cheeks were flushed. Aziraphale could only imagine the delicious commotion going on inside of her. “Where are we?”

They had pulled up in front of a Victorian flint cottage. It had brick trimmed windows, a red roof, and a gabled porch whose steep, gothic slope had reminded Aziraphale of some of her favourite parts of Crowley. Once upon a time Aziraphale might have wondered what on earth it said about her, that she was seeing pussy even in the shapes of nineteenth century architecture, but this was the happily ever after part of the story, and this was the part where it was all pussy all the time. She was even relatively okay with the word ‘pussy’ these days.

“Who lives here?” said Crowley.

“Nobody. Yet. Come and see.”

Crowley stifled a moan and shook her head. “I can’t,” she said. “Not right now. Not after driving up that potholed lane.” She pulled Aziraphale’s hand to her upper thigh. “Please, angel. I’m a mess. I need to fucking come.”

“Very well,” said Aziraphale. “You may take care of yourself before we go inside.” She barely finished the sentence before Crowley slid down in the seat, propped a foot on the dashboard and reached between her open thighs, a moan exploding from her lips as she started to rub. She was gorgeous, absolutely obscene, and Aziraphale couldn’t get enough of her. She reached out and pulled down the drape of Crowley’s top, exposing her white breasts and pinching her nubby red nipples. Crowley, skirt around her waist, cried out and bucked into her own hand.

“Please,” she said. “Please. Come with me.”

Aziraphale laughed. “Darling, I don’t think there’s time,” she said, because – as aroused as she was – she would never catch up to Crowley. Crowley’s long thighs were already starting to tremble, her bare bottom off the edge of the seat. Quickly, Aziraphale slipped a hand up her own skirt, pushed the lace of her underwear aside and wet her fingers. Crowley saw what she was doing and cried out again, but this time Aziraphale pushed her slick fingers into her open mouth, letting her suck and lick and taste.

That seemed to be all Crowley needed to finish her off. Although Aziraphale couldn’t enjoy the coveted view from directly between her legs, she’d seen enough of Crowley’s orgasms to know what this one would look like. It was the kind that made her pelvic floor muscles pulse and squeeze so deep and hard that her thighs shook and her cunt looked like an erupting volcano. She wailed around Aziraphale’s fingers, sharp white teeth sinking into the knuckles, tongue trembling as she came.

Shaking, Crowley subsided back into the driver’s seat. A blue vein thrummed away in her long white throat as she licked her lips and swallowed. Her entire outfit had been reduced to a bunched up mess between nipples and navel, and one black snakeskin heel was hanging off her toes. Her hand was still between her legs, rubbing very carefully now, and making her wince at her own touch.

“My darling,” said Aziraphale, leaning over to suck on her nipples and kiss her mouth. “My lovely, filthy, dirty darling. You deserve nothing but pleasure from now on.”

Crowley groaned and caught her breath. “Much more pleasure,” she said. “And I might actually explode.” She took her foot off the dashboard, smoothed down her skirt and glanced out of the window. “Oh shit. Did I just give some estate agent enough wank material for a century?”

“No, dear. It’s just us. Come on. Let’s go in. Get you cleaned up.”

Crowley – even looser than usual at the knees and hips – wobbled out of the car. “You do know I’ve still got those ben-wa balls shoved up my ladygarden, don’t you?” she said, as Aziraphale led her up the garden path. “I may very well end up needing another orgasm, sooner rather than later.”

“That’s fine,” said Aziraphale, unlocking the front door. “Just say the word. I’m more than happy to attend to your needs.”

“You’ve got a lot more sexually aggressive since Armageddon,” said Crowley. “I like it.” She stood in the empty hallway, her jacket thrown over one shoulder and her hair still ruffled at the back. A trickle of melted butter ran down the inside of her thigh, and Aziraphale had to bite her tongue hard against all the stupid things she wanted to say. _If you stay here with me I will worship you in every obscene way you desire. I’ll devote every moment of every day and every night to giving you joy. And I’ll live in bliss every second you’re near me._

Instead she took Crowley’s hand. “Come and see,” she said, and led her through the rooms in the cottage – the hallway with the herringbone parquet floor, the large rectangular living room with its low beamed ceiling, and the narrow kitchen that overlooked not only a patio and a charming sunken garden, but drew the eye to a long, downward slope towards the sea. At the bottom of the garden was a bridleway that led down to the beach.

“Now this I think you’ll really like,” Aziraphale said, opening the side door of the kitchen. Crowley followed her out into the lean-to conservatory, where the air hung hot and heavy under glass, the way it had in the glass house where they’d spent so much time at the Dowling residence. Currently the place was empty of plants, but Aziraphale’s memory and imagination furnished all the scents and colours that might one day bloom there – vivid pink aubergine flowers, maybe a lemon tree in the corner, and three kinds of tomatoes perfuming the air with the green, pungent summery scent of their foliage. “It’s an authentic Victorian greenhouse,” she said. “Could grow all kinds of things in here.” She glanced at Crowley, whose glasses had slipped down her nose again. Her eyes were wide and far too bright. “If you wanted to, of course.”

“If I wanted to?” said Crowley. “If what? If I…if I…lived here?”

Aziraphale felt her face turn hot. “Yes. If you…if you wanted to.” She took a breath and just said it anyway, because she’d been dancing around it for long enough now. “I thought maybe, if you wanted a break from London for…for a decade or two. Maybe longer. Depending on how we settle in. And I know your style of decorating is a lot more minimalist than mine, but if you could tolerate living with me and all my clutter—”

Crowley cut her off with a dry, close mouthed kiss, both hands on her face. “Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Hell, yes.” Crowley was shaking and laughing all at once. They both were. She pushed her glasses up onto her head, her golden eyes streaming. When they kissed again it tasted of tears. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to keep crying all over you, but I’m not used to having everything I want. Ever. Never mind all at once.”

Aziraphale lapped up her tears with little licks of her tongue. “Poor darling,” she said. “I’m afraid you’ll just have to get used to it, because this is the part of the story where we live happily ever after.” She laced her fingers with Crowley’s. “Come and see the rest of the garden. Come and see this beautiful world you helped to save.”

Crowley moaned softly as she navigated the steps of the sunken garden in her heels. There would be more sex before they got back in the car, or perhaps sex in the back of the car, but Aziraphale hadn’t thought much further than that. Right now she was simply happy to keep Crowley wet and hungry for her, and sate her whenever she desired. Now that they were free to give into it, their lust was infinite and intoxicating. Crowley would sneak up to her in the back of the bookshop – sometimes when there were customers there, which made stifling her moans exquisitely exciting – and start growling in her ear. “Show me your tits,” or “Drop your drawers, angel.” Sometimes Aziraphale left her knickers in the lingerie drawer and went downstairs to make a point of climbing up and down every stepladder in the bookshop, and the results were always delightful. Crowley fucked her silly with long fingers and longer tongue, and sometimes – because Crowley was braver about blurring those lines than Aziraphale – a graceful and indefatigable cock. She fucked Aziraphale in the mouth, in the cunt, and up the arse, but even when she was doing Aziraphale up the bum, pulling her hair and calling her a dirty little slut who couldn’t get enough, Aziraphale still never felt anything other than cherished. Whenever Aziraphale looked in a mirror and saw her own kiss-bruised mouth and well-nibbled earlobes, she couldn’t help but smile at what Crowley was doing to her. She knew how good she looked, because Crowley looked the same way, too – bright eyed, satisfied, blissfully filthy. Their love was a blasphemy and a sacrament, six thousand years in the making. Was it any wonder they had no more restraint?

They sat on the bench in the garden. Crowley, knees indecently parted, hairpins held between her teeth as she attempted to restore some order to her hair, squinted over at a blossom tree. “What kind of tree is that, do you think?” she said.

“I think the estate agent said it was plum.”

“Huh.” Crowley spat out the last remaining hairpin and pushed it back into her sloppy red chignon. “I’ve never grown plums before. I suppose you’ll try to make jam out of them?”

“I might, yes.”

Crowley crossed her long legs and twisted to look back up at the house. “It’s kind of small.”

“It’s compact and bijou,” said Aziraphale.

“Is that something the estate agent said, as well?” said Crowley. “Where are you going to put all your books?”

“Oh, don’t worry about the books. Books are like the opposite of a vacuum: the space available expands to accommodate them. It won’t be a problem, unless you object to parts of the house bending the laws of physics, of course?”

“Nah,” said Crowley. “Doesn’t bother me. You know me and the laws of physics. They’re kind of like the Highway Code to me – they exist, but there’s no real reason for me to pay attention to them.”

“Maybe I could learn to drive,” said Aziraphale, making Crowley laugh.

“Uh, nope.”

“I might be good at it,” said Aziraphale, annoyed. Learning to drive seemed like one of the new things she _ought_ to be doing now that she had time on her hands.

“You might,” said Crowley. “But you’re never getting behind the wheel of my car.”

“Why not?”

“Put it this way. Would you let me near your oldest and most precious editions? The ones you only handle with the gloves on?”

“Of course not,” said Aziraphale. “You’d probably spill espresso all over them.”

“There you go, then.”

Not for the first time, Aziraphale felt a flicker of anxiety. She had a feeling that the whole business of sharing personal space was going to be a bit more complicated than simply ‘and then they lived happily ever after.’ “You’re going to have to bear with me. I’ve never lived with anyone before.”

“Neither have I,” said Crowley.

“What if we’re dreadful at it?”

Crowley shrugged and leaned closer on the bench, her hip against Aziraphale’s. “We might be,” she said. “But on the other hand we might be good at it. We might never want to be apart, ever again.”

“That sounds serious.”

“It could be,” said Crowley, and as soon as she said it Aziraphale knew that one day it would be, if Aziraphale had anything to do with it. Which was absurd, because it had taken her six thousand years to see herself as a woman, let alone a woman who had a _wife_. One step at a time, she told herself, but one day – once they’d wrangled the practical considerations of wardrobe space and off-street parking, and once the plum blossoms had turned into fruit a handful of times, and once Aziraphale had got to grips with the mysteries of pectin at last – one day it would be time to ask.


	9. New Aunts

In the course of her long existence, Crowley had often fantasised about what it would be like to be in love with Aziraphale. Really in love. With the I love yous all said and done and out in the open, and with the two of them happily shacked up in a cottage on the South Downs, not too dissimilar to the South Downs cottage where they had first become lovers. She had daydreamed about bringing the angel morning tea in bed, and late night cognac by the fire, and summer evenings walking barefoot on the beach, hand in hand. And the whole time she had always told herself – even while torturing herself with these visions – that something this close to heaven was too far out of reach for a literal thing from Hell.

The reality of living with Aziraphale was a lot less soft focus than Crowley’s fantasies. There were the books to contend with, for a start. Then there were the shoes. Aziraphale, who had once pranced across the bloodstained cobbles of revolutionary Paris in a pair of the most _darling_ cream satin kicks, turned out to have as big a penchant for pretty shoes as she had for frilly knickers. She bought cream ballet pumps and nude high heels, and a pair of pale rose-gold sandals with four inch heels, because she wanted to see if ‘fuck-me shoes’ worked as advertised.

They did.

Pleased, Aziraphale bought even more shoes, and the boxes piled up in the corner of the bedroom until Crowley swore there was no space in the house for anything but shoes and rare books of prophecy. Aziraphale shot back that Crowley was a fine one to talk, given the way that she accumulated houseplants until a simple visit to the bathroom – for Aziraphale – was starting to feel like an expedition to find the source of the bleeding Nile.

They made up, of course, but after that the relationship headed for strange places that Crowley had never envisioned in all her wildest daydreams. Like the garden centre. And IKEA. And it was actually delightful, because those moments where they were wrangling Swedish shoe racks and drawing up plans for a conservatory were mixed with the sublime, and their mundanity made the sublime that much more real. And maybe that was a good thing, because there were some times – like when Crowley was watching the way Aziraphale’s English rose complexion bloomed in a red firelight or an early frost – that she had cause to wonder if you could actually die from happiness.

The summer was so close to being over that Crowley could almost smell the first bonfire whiff of autumn on the breeze. Beyond the bottom of the hill the Channel – hazy with a summer sea mist – gleamed pale blue. Crowley and Harriet sat barefoot in deckchairs, and watched the kids at play on the lawn. Warlock had taken the stabilisers off the back wheel of Ursula’s bike, and she was eyeing it with a new trepidation. Aziraphale was inside, unseen but very much heard, as she cheerfully smashed up ice cubes for cocktails.

Ursula mounted the bicycle, and Warlock held onto the back of her seat to steady her. “Don’t let go,” she said.

“I won’t. I promise.”

“Swear. Pinky swear!”

The children locked fingers. Not that there was much of the child left in their boy. It seemed like he’d streaked upwards overnight without gaining so much as a pound, so that now he looked stretched, like chewing gum. His hands and feet were enormous. “They’re so grown up,” Crowley said.

“I know,” said Harriet. “They’re babies for the blink of an eye. I still remember the first time Ursula told me not to call her baby anymore. She was _three_.”

“Whether she likes it or not, she’ll still be your baby when she’s thirty-five.”

"She will. And she won’t. Like it, that is.”

Ursula was peddling furiously, wobbling slightly. Warlock had nothing but the tips of two fingers on the back of her bicycle seat. “Are you still holding me?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve got you,” Warlock lied, running alongside to keep up the pretence.

“Holy shit. She’s doing it,” said Harriet, peering over her sunglasses. “No training wheels. Think we should let her in on the secret?”

“No,” said Crowley. “Not yet. I’m sure he’ll tell her eventually. Once she’s got her confidence up.”

“He’s such a good big brother.” Harriet sighed. “My taste in men sucks, but I really couldn’t have wished for nicer kids. Or a better nanny.”

“Oh, stop. I don’t deserve that.”

“No, you don’t, not with the way you ran off.” Harriet glared, but there was no real anger to it. “Which I’m still pissed off about, by the way. I _missed_ you.”

“I know,” said Crowley, patting her hand. “And I’m sorry, my dear. I really am, but I was…well…” She glanced furtively around and lowered her voice – already dipped down to Nanny Ashtoreth’s genteel register – even further. “…I was _reactivated_.”

Harriet’s brown eyes were huge. “MI5?” she whispered.

Crowley nodded. “And I’ve told you much more than I ever should.”

“Right,” said Harriet. “I kind of suspected that was what had happened.”

“If I’d had a choice,” said Crowley. “I would never have left. Those were some of the happiest days of my life, with you, and the children.”

“And Frances.”

“Oh yes,” said Crowley, as ‘Frances’ emerged from the kitchen. Aziraphale had entered the house as a bathing beauty in polka dots and sunglasses, but had evidently got chilly while smashing up the ice, and had thrown a cream cableknit sweater over her bikini. It had the odd effect of making her look even more like a pin-up than before. She was bare legged in Birkenstocks, and she was carrying a tray of interesting looking drinks.

“There you are,” said Crowley, and if it hadn’t been for Harriet and the kids she would have pounced right there and then. “What have you been up to?”

“Mischief,” said Aziraphale, setting down her tray and settling into the deckchair on Crowley’s other side. “May I introduce you to a little concoction known as a Bramble?” She passed a glass to Crowley. “You take gin, lemon, and simple syrup, then you shake them up, pour over lots of crushed ice, and then you pour crème de mure over the top.”

“Crème de mure?” said Harriet.

“Blackberry liqueur,” said Aziraphale. “It’s homemade.”

“She never managed to get the hang of jam,” said Crowley, stroking the back of Aziraphale’s ankle with her foot. “But of course she figured out to make booze out of blackberries.”

Harriet blinked and hesitated, but Aziraphale wasn’t in the business of leading people astray.

“It’s quite all right,” she said, handing Harriet a glass. “I made yours virgin. Elderflower cordial instead of gin.”

They sat and sipped and enjoyed the view. The sinking sun was starting to turn the sea pink, but Crowley only had eyes for the angel. It was one of the chief delights of her new life, to simply gaze without restriction. Aziraphale sat perched on the edge of her deckchair, lips parted, the cooling breeze catching the ends of her bobbed curls. Her feet, peeking toenails defiantly painted fire engine red, were posed pigeon, her knees together. The sunset light caught the barely-there blonde hairs standing upright on her goosebumped thigh, lending her an almost celestial glow. At first Crowley had assumed it was simply an angel thing, but on closer inspection she’d discovered that Aziraphale was covered in all kinds of interesting hairs, from the peach fuzz on her upper lip to the wisp of silver blonde fluff – that Crowley had begged her not to shave – on her plump pubic mound.

Crowley reached out, unable to resist the urge to touch. Her fingers brushed along the outside of Aziraphale’s thigh, and Aziraphale captured her hand, their fingers twisting together in a way that made Crowley feel like her heart was several sizes too big for her chest. And she wasn’t even drunk yet.

“This place is so beautiful,” Harriet said. “I’m gonna miss England.”

“You can always come back and visit.”

Harriet sighed. “I hope so. I have a feeling I’m going to be very busy for a while, though.”

“Oh?” said Aziraphale. “You have plans?”

“She’s joining the family business,” said Crowley.

“Politics,” said Harriet, in response to Aziraphale’s searching look. “My dad, my grandfather – all the contacts that Thad relied on when was coming up were really mine. I might have lost a few in the divorce, but I’m still my father’s daughter. And I totally sucked at being a politician’s wife. Perhaps I’ll be better at being a politician.”

"I’m sure you will,” said Aziraphale. “What’s your manifesto going to be?”

“Oh, lots of things. The environment. Daycare. Maternity pay. Wage equality. I have all kinds of ideas.”

“How exciting!”

“Yeah, and terrifying,” said Harriet. “I’ve already been accused of being a bra burning harpy, and I haven’t even finished filing the paperwork to run.”

“Isn’t that an urban legend?” said Crowley, stirring herself from the bottom of a gin glass.

“What’s that, dear?”

“Bra burning,” Crowley said. “I’m sure I heard somewhere that it was something the press invented to make feminists look deranged and unreasonable.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised,” said Harriet.

“Neither would I,” said Aziraphale. “Witchcraft, bra burning, hysteria. I seem to remember that at one point at the turn of the previous century that some doctors had a very good go at trying to pathologise suffragettes’ desire to break windows.”

Harriet snorted. “What did they call it? Wannavoteitis?”

Aziraphale giggled into her gin. “Something like that. Funny how some men always reach for the medical dictionary whenever a woman gets heated.”

“Nymphomania,” said Crowley, stroking the back of Aziraphale’s ankle with her toes.

“Is that even real?” said Harriet. “Or just some horny medical fantasy?”

“Oh, probably the latter,” said Aziraphale. “Just another one of those things that men like to pin on difficult women.”

Ursula shrieked then, because she’d finally realised she was peddling on her own. They all leapt to their feet and gave her a standing ovation, while Warlock whooped and cheered from the sidelines.

“It was so nice to see them again,” Aziraphale said, when they were standing in the lane, watching the rear lights of Harriet’s car disappear into the dark.

“It was,” said Crowley. “Felt like we’re a proper couple.”

“We _are_ a proper couple.”

“I know, but it feels…I don’t know. Real. Realer.”

“We’re very real,” said Aziraphale, leading the way back into the cottage. She was still bare legged and was starting to shiver. “You are mine, and I am yours, and that’s all there is to it.”

She kicked off her sandals in the hallway and padded barefoot into the kitchen. Lovely legs – rounded calves, plump thighs, dainty ankles. Crowley followed her, not wanting to let her out of her sight for an instant, and found her bending over to load the dishwasher. From this angle the view was even more delightful, the polka dots of Aziraphale’s bikini stretched into ellipses by her big bottom and voluptuous hips. The fleshy tops of her thighs primly concealed the hungry gap between them, but then she bent just a little farther to reach something in the back, and Crowley could make out the tempting pout of her pussy beneath the tight lycra.

Aziraphale stepped back and straightened up to close the dishwasher. She caught Crowley staring out of the corner of her eye and turned, and there it was, rich as butter and radiant as the sun. That smile. The Sussex smile, the one that said they were home free and belonged to each other.

“What are you staring at?” said Aziraphale, with a sexy smugness that said she knew very well what had captured Crowley’s attention. Aziraphale had always had a coquettish side, but now that she had the freedom to indulge it she had turned into a weapons grade flirt. She was always scattering innuendos like confetti in her wake, or prancing around with that gleam in her eye, the one that said her knickers were currently in her handbag. Sometimes she’d come down in nothing but high heels and pearls and declare that she literally couldn’t find _anything_ to wear. Crowley ate it all up like an angel gone feral in a Parisian patisserie.

“You,” she said, moving closer and squishing Aziraphale up against the side of the kitchen counter. “How do you manage to look that luscious in an old sweater?”

“You don’t look so bad yourself,” Aziraphale said, winding her arms around Crowley’s neck. Her kiss tasted of sugared lemons, juniper lingering on her breath as she sighed. She wriggled her hips against the kitchen surface, and Crowley took the hint, reaching down to cup her through the bathing suit. That bikini was almost as old as Warlock, but Aziraphale always took good care of her things, and it was as pristine as it had been on the night when it had landed with a wet splat next to the Dowlings’ pool, and when Crowley had learned that wet splats could – under the right and very specific circumstances – be intensely erotic noises.

Aziraphale was making some seriously sexy noises right now, contralto rumbles deep in the back of her throat as her tongue chased Crowley’s, and she rubbed herself against Crowley’s hand. Crowley pushed the bikini bottoms aside so that the side seam settled directly between Aziraphale’s legs, baring one soft outer lip and giving Aziraphale yet another reason to wriggle. The angel’s hips were already in subtle but urgent motion. She leaned back, unfastened her bra and pushed both sweater and bikini top up to her neck, offering her magnificent tits for attention. “I fucking love you,” Crowley said, because she could, and dipped her head to suckle on a big, peachy, pink-tipped nipple. Her thumb slipped under the leg hole of Aziraphale’s skewed bikini bottoms, and she could feel the wet heat of her already. “How are you so horny?”

“Quite easily,” said Aziraphale. “You haven’t fucked me since before breakfast.”

She’d been asking for that. She had lured Crowley out of bed with the scent of good coffee, and Crowley had come down to find Aziraphale drifting around the kitchen in one of her lacy little nothings, one that barely covered her bum and left her nipples clearly visible. Then Aziraphale had started licking a honey spoon with purpose and intent, and things had gotten…sticky. Part of Crowley was relieved that it had taken Aziraphale six thousand years to embrace a female corporation, because she wasn’t sure she would have survived that level of torment. Aziraphale’s realisation that her new corporation was beautiful and desirable also seemed to have come hand in hand with a determination to turn herself into some kind of one woman sexual amusement park. And still Crowley couldn’t get enough of her.

Aziraphale stepped out of her bikini bottoms and leaned back, her feet apart and her cunt dewy. “Would you like to go upstairs, or are you happy to have me here?”

“Oh, I’m happy to have you anywhere,” said Crowley, sliding easily inside her with three fingers. Aziraphale moaned and pushed back with her hips, taking what she wanted. She was soaked and silky, a literal work of heaven. “Although I think nymphomania might be real after all.”

Aziraphale tried to look as baleful as she could, which wasn’t very baleful at all, under the circumstances. She was already wearing the greedy, rosy-lipped, heavy-lidded, come-fuck-me-look she wore whenever she was completely lost in pleasure, and her clit was so high and tight under Crowley’s thumb that Crowley wondered how long she’d been looking forward to this. “I want to come,” she said, gyrating eagerly, swallowing Crowley up to the third knuckle.

“Well, that’s convenient,” said Crowley. “Because I want to make you come.” She did a lot of that these days. There were few things as fun as following an angel around the cottage, pouncing on her at every opportunity, and making her go off like a bottle rocket.

Crowley knelt, pulling her black one piece tight between her legs. She’d get hers later, but right now all she wanted was to lick and suck and taste. Aziraphale always smelled delicious – salt and flesh and peaches – and tasted even better. She spread her thighs even wider and wailed when Crowley’s tongue snaked up inside her and found the last lingering traces of the honey from this morning. Crowley devoured her like she was the oyster she had offered two thousand years ago, only with a lot more relish, since Crowley had never cared that much for oysters. This, on the other hand, this she would never get sick of. She was four fingers deep, diving for Aziraphale’s g-spot while sucking on the perfect pink pearl of her clit. Aziraphale was in full jiggle now, thighs trembling, tits bouncing. Her sweater had slipped down again, covering one breast and making her look twice as undressed as if she’d been completely nude. Crowley moaned into her and felt her tighten, a weak contraction at first, then growing stronger and deeper as Aziraphale threw back her head and whispered, “Oh God, I’m coming. I’m coming, ohfuckmeImcoming…”

As she came her bare heel slipped on the tiled floor, and she instinctively threw herself backwards, almost ending up in the kitchen sink. Crowley steadied her and muffled her laugh in Aziraphale’s bush, holding her through the last slow rocks of her hips.

“Oh God,” Aziraphale said. She pulled off her sweater and the dangling remains of her bra, and ran her tongue over her pant parched lips. “Right. Your turn.”

Crowley squirmed hopefully, grinding onto the seam of her bathing suit. “What are you going to do to me?” she said.

“Nothing you don’t richly deserve,” said Aziraphale. “Come on. Upstairs.”

Crowley did as she was told and followed Aziraphale to their bedroom, hypnotised by the view. Aziraphale must have known she was looking, because she swung her hips a little harder as she climbed, waving her sumptuously rounded bum in Crowley’s face. “Everything off, and onto the bed, please,” she said, with a brisk bossiness that made something inside Crowley snort and paw the dirt, because she knew she was about to place herself at the mercy of Aziraphale’s surprisingly and impressively dirty mind. Crowley stripped off and stretched out naked on the bed, curious to see what came next, because Aziraphale had opened the toy chest they kept at the foot of the bed. Crowley was about to sit up and take a closer look, when she felt something soft slither round both of her wrists, pulling her backwards and tugging her arms above her head. Next thing she knew she was tied to the bars of the headboard with a couple of Aziraphale’s old magic silks.

“Nice,” she said. “Why didn’t you do magic tricks like this before?”

Aziraphale peeked over the lid of the chest. “Not exactly suitable for children’s parties, dear,” she said, and with a flourish whipped out her favourite purple sparkly dildo. “Ah. Knew it was in here somewhere.”

Crowley spread her legs. “Please tell me you’re going to make that disappear,” she said. She had managed to put her own needs aside up until now, but now she was aching for attention. Twice as much now that she couldn’t even touch herself.

“All in good time,” said Aziraphale, closing the lid of the chest. For the first time Crowley saw that Aziraphale – who wasn’t as comfortable as slipping between sexes as Crowley – had taken the opportunity to put on the harness that went with the cock.

“Now would be a good time,” said Crowley, watching Aziraphale slip the dick into position. It was an expensive model that curved to fit into the top’s pussy and stimulate her clit, and Aziraphale bit her lip as she settled it into place. Crowley whined and twisted against her bonds, but the silks only tightened.

“You can’t rush a skilled magician, Crowley,” Aziraphale said, crawling onto the bed on her hands and knees.

“You’re not a skilled magician. You’re a fucking terrible magici…oh. Oh God, yes. Yes. _Please_.” At that moment Aziraphale pinched her nipples, and the longed-for touch almost set Crowley bouncing off the ceiling. “Touch me, please.”

“Would you like me to get the nipple clamps, darling?”

“No. Don’t you dare take your hands off me.”

Deep in her essential nature, Crowley had always known that everything automatically became more tempting as soon as you put it on a high shelf out of reach, and perhaps slapped a DO NOT TOUCH sign on it for added allure, but even she hadn’t been prepared for how well Aziraphale had pulled off this ancient trick. Now that she was unable to touch, there was nothing Crowley wanted to do more, except perhaps be touched. She arched into Aziraphale’s caress, moaning as Aziraphale lowered her head to suck at her nipples. This was where the trick came undone, because Aziraphale’s boobs wanted nothing to do with whatever slow tease she was attempting to execute on Crowley. They spilled forward, jostling and squishing, a pillowy party of skin on skin. Crowley bucked and tried to wind her legs around Aziraphale, but Aziraphale shook her head.

“Behave,” she said, sliding down the bed. “Or I’ll tie your ankles, too. Now, lift up.” She shoved a pillow under Crowley’s hips, smiled sweetly and pushed inside her with one smooth motion. A weird, needy wailing noise burst from somewhere, and Crowley had barely had time to register that the sound was coming from her own throat before Aziraphale slipped out again.

“No, don’t tease me,” Crowley said. “No, no, no…yes…oh God, yes.” Aziraphale’s soft, greedy mouth fastened over her clit, suckling, tongue trembling in maddening circles. Crowley couldn’t tell if she had two fingers or four inside, but whatever it was, it wasn’t enough. She hitched her feet in the air and Aziraphale pushed gently on the backs of her knees, spreading her higher and wider. Aziraphale’s tongue moved lower, flicking indecently at her arse and wringing another strange noise from the depths of her throat.

“Oh, silly me,” Aziraphale murmured. “Forgot the buttplug.”

“I don’t _care_,” said Crowley, writhing her hips back and forth on the pillow. “Fuck me. I’m going mad.”

Aziraphale raised her head. She looked so sweet and well-scrubbed that nobody but Crowley could ever have imagined how cheerfully filthy she really was. “What’s the magic word?”

“Aziraphale, fuck me _right now_, or I won’t be held responsible for my actions.”

“Near enough,” said Aziraphale, settling back on top. She lined herself up. “Now you see it…” Crowley moaned. “…now you don’t.”

“Really?” said Crowley, trying - and failing - to feel as disgusted as she thought she should. She wrapped her legs around Aziraphale’s waist and held her there, determined not to be teased this time. “Was that from your magic act?”

Aziraphale giggled and started to rock slowly into her. “Not your style?”

“You’re a monster. Don’t ever stop.”

“Not sure that I could at this point.” She’d found her rhythm, fucking Crowley with deep, steady strokes, her big pink boobs swinging like bells. As she picked up speed her breasts bounced faster and harder, driving Crowley half mad with the desire to suck on them. Unable to touch, Crowley gave vent to her enthusiasm with her hips and her voice, moaning, swearing, and pleading. Aziraphale was moaning, too, head down, palms open, grinding into the toy inside her. Crowley unwound her legs from Aziraphale’s waist, hitched up her heels and rode her, her arse bouncing up and down on the bed to meet each thrust, pouring out a loud stream of obscene encouragement – fuck me, fuck my pussy, pound me like a dirt cheap steak, yes, there, there, _there_…

She came hard enough to feel something gush, and perhaps Aziraphale felt it, too, because she threw back her head, opened her mouth and came along with her, fingers digging into the flesh of Crowley’s hips. Crowley crossed her ankles across Aziraphale’s back and held her tight and deep, feeling her flesh still pulsing and squeezing gently against the intrusion. The silks slid off Crowley’s wrists and Crowley went near berserk in her desperation to touch everything, Aziraphale’s face and hair and mouth, her neck, her breasts, her belly and thighs.

Eventually they rolled apart. Aziraphale lay panting on her back, ripe breasts heaving and the slick, sparkly purple dick stirring gently in time with her breaths. Crowley sat up and straddled her, sinking down to take it all the way. She drew in her muscles and sighed, eager to harvest every last drop of her satisfaction. “You know, I’ve often wondered why you don’t decide to go with the real thing,” she said. “But I can see your point. At least silicone never goes soft on you.”

Aziraphale smiled, her hands on Crowley’s hips. “And you look an absolute treat sitting on it like that,” she said. “Have you had enough?”

“For now. I just like the way it feels inside me.” Crowley rocked back on her heels, went too far and winced. “God, you really fucking _banged_ me.”

Aziraphale apologised, but she knew Crowley well enough to know what Crowley wanted next. She divested herself of the harness and wriggled down the bed to spread Crowley’s legs and kiss her bruises better. Sometimes, after Crowley had taken her wrist deep, there would be ice packs and cold kisses, and slow, shuddery orgasms coaxed from the tip of Aziraphale’s chilled, flickering tongue. “You lovely thing,” Aziraphale said, her delicate, healing fingers slipping inside and soothing. “You’re so good to me, to indulge all my over the top appetites the way you do.”

“I don’t mind,” said Crowley, reaching down to caress Aziraphale’s tangled curls. “We’re in the honeymoon period. I’m thinking of at least five or six decades of total, balls to the wall depravity, and then maybe we’ll switch it up and get into leather and bondage or something.”

Aziraphale giggled and kissed her on the belly. “Did you ever imagine this?” she said. “When we first met?”

“What? Did I look at you standing on the wall of the Garden of Eden and think ‘Yep, we’re going to end up as a couple of lesbians living in a cottage on the South Downs’? No. No, I can honestly say it didn’t cross my mind at the time.”

“Funny how things turn out, isn’t it?”

“Not with you, no,” said Crowley. “You’ve always been full of surprises.”

Aziraphale turned sweetly pink. “Do you really think so?”

“I know so. _Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety_.”

“Darling,” said Aziraphale, rubbing her cheek against Crowley’s stomach. “My serpent of old Nile.”

“Wait.” Crowley frowned. “Isn’t that one of the gloomy ones?”

“Not this time, dear. Not this time.”

**The End**

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks, as always, for reading and commenting!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [by the pool](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21790990) by [SaerM](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaerM/pseuds/SaerM)


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